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A SHORT 

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



By 

ANDREW LANG 

AUTHOR OF 
A HISTORY OF SCOTLAND FROM THE ROMAN OCCUPATION' 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1912 



A 



^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 



©OI.A305467 



NO. I 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I piaE 

Scotland and the Romans — The Antonine Vallum — Traces of 
Roman Occupation 1 

CHAPTER II 

Christianity — The Rival Kingdoms — Mixture of Races . . 6 

CHAPTER III. 

Early Wars of Races — English Claims over Scotland — The 
Scottish Acquisition of Lothian — Slaying of Duncan . 9 

CHAPTER IV 

Malcolm Canmore — Norman Conquest — Deaths of Margaret 
and Malcolm — Scottish Church — Dynasty of Malcolm . 15 

CHAPTER V 

David I. and His Times— Battle of the Standard (1138)— 
Scotland Becomes Feudal — Church Lands — The Burghs — 
Justice— The Courts 21 

CHAPTER VI 

Malcolm the Maiden — William the Lion — Reign of William 
— Alexander II. — Alexander III. — Alexander Takes the 
Western Isles 32 

CHAPTER VII 

Encroachments of Edward I. — Wallace. — The Year of Wal- 
lace—Perfidy of Bruce 37 

CHAPTER VIII 

Bruce and the War of Independence — Rise of Bruce — 
Later Days of Bruce — Death of Bruce .... 43 

CHAPTER IX 
Decadence and Disasters — Reign of David II. — Capture of 
David II. (1346) — Parliament — Parliament and the Crown 

— Scottish Authors 49 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X pAGB 

Early Stewart Kings: Robert II. (1371-1390)— Death of 
Robert II. — The Regency of Albany — Albany's Death . 56 

CHAPTER XI 
James I. — James and the Nobles 61 

CHAPTER XII 

James II. — Fall of the Black Douglases — Death of James II. 

(1460) 65 

CHAPTER XIII 

James III. — Defeat of Douglas — Character of James — Mar- 
riage Negotiations 70 

CHAPTER XIV 

James IV. — Highland Feuds — James and Henry VIII. — 
University of Aberdeen Founded — Factions and Feuds — 
Struggles for the King's Person 77 

CHAPTER XV 

James V. and the Reformation — A Martyrdom — The Guise 
Marriage — Death of James V 89 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Minority of Mary Stuart— Henry Turns to Arran — 
Waverings of Arran — Victory of Ancrum — Beaton Makes 
Calvinism Possible .97 

CHAPTER XVII 

Regency of Arran — John Knox — Mary of Guise as Regent . 106 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Regency of Mary of Guise — Knox Revisits Scotland (1555) — 
Mary Weds the Dauphin (1558)— Outbreak at Perth 
(1559)— Knox's ' History ' Considered 110 

CHAPTER XIX 

The Great Pillage — Ecclesiastical Buildings Despoiled — Leth- 
ington's Wiliness — The Confession of Faith — The Kirk — 
Character of Mary 118 



CONTENTS vii 



CHAPTER XX PAGB 

Mary in Scotland — Mary and Elizabeth — Knox and Mary — 
Mary and Darnley — Murder of Riccio — Murder of Darn- 
ley — Mary's Captivity — Parties in Scotland .... 109 

CHAPTER XXI 

Minority of James VI. — Murray's Regency — Regencies of 
Lennox, Mar, and Morton — Knox's Death — Morton Ap- 
points Bishops 143 

CHAPTER XXII 

Reign of James VI.— Arrest of Morton— The War of Kirk 
and King — James's Advisers — Gowrie Executed — An Alli- 
ance Formed — Gifts of Church Lands to Nobles — The 
Catholic Earls — Elizabeth Patronises Puritan Plots — Con- 
spiracies Against Scottish Princes ...... 151 

CHAPTER XXIII 

The Gowrie Conspiracy — Preachers Disbelieve the King — 
Union of the Crowns — James Succeeds to Elizabeth — The 
Kirk Oppressed — Articles of Perth 167 

CHAPTER XXIV 

Charles I.— Charles I. in Edinburgh— The Brawl in St. Giles' 
— The Covenant — Bishops Excommunicated and Deposed — 
Charles Gives Way to Assembly — Scots Demands Granted 
— Montrose Released — English Parliament Appeals to 
Scotland — Montrose and the Fiery Cross — Victories of 
Montrose — Battle of Philiphaugh — Charles Trusts His 
Scots — Estates and Clergy Clash — Disenabling Acts — 
Scotland and Charles II. — Treaty of Breda — Cromwell 
Defeats Scots— Dundee Sacked 179 

CHAPTER XXV 

Conquered Scotland — English Commission of Justice — Re- 
spect for Covenants 214 

CHAPTER XXVI 

The Restoration — Defiance of Argyll — Parliament Obsequi- 
ous — Episcopacy Restored — Covenanters Intrigue with 
Holland — Rule of Lauderdale — Disorganisation of Scottish 
Church — Hanging of Mitchell — Claverhouse Defeated — 
The Wild Hill-Folk— Flight of Argyll—" The Apologetical 
Declaration " — The Covenanters Put Down — Scottish Army 
Disbanded— Torture 218 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXVII PAGE 

William and Mary — Dundee Collects Troops — Death of Dun- 
dee — The Covenant Dropped — Dalrymple — The Massacre 
of Glencoe 247 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

Darien — The Darien Adventure — Scots and Spaniards Clash 

— Difficulties of Union — Conditions of Inequality . . 258 

CHAPTER XXIX 

Preliminaries to the Union — Union and Intrigues — Re- 
strictions on Scottish Trade — Taxation — Troubles After 
Union — George I. Accepts the Throne 266 

CHAPTER XXX 

George I. — James Flees — Mar's Hopeless Enterprise — Illness 
and Flight of James— Birth of Prince Charles . . 276 

CHAPTER XXXI 

The Argathelians and the Squadrone — Enclosures and Riots 
— Malt Riots — State of the Highlands — Prince Charles 
Under Fire— The Porteous Riot— Dislike of Walpole's 
Government 284 



^ 



CHAPTER XXXII 

The First Secession — Secession in the Kirk — Excommunica- 
tion of Seceders 294 

CHAPTER XXXIII 

The Last Jacobite Rising — The Prince Raises the Standard — 
The Prince Approaches Edinburgh — Gledsmuir — The 
Prince's Peril — March of Charles's Troops — Concentra- 
tion of the Enemy — Hawley Defeated — Campaign in the 
North — Culloden — After Culloden — The Appin Murder — 
Conclusion — The Disruption 299 



>3- 



CHAPTER I 

SCOTLAND AND THE ROMANS 

If we could see in a magic mirror the country now 
called Scotland as it was when the Romans under 
Agricola (81 a.d.) crossed the Border, we should recog- 
nise little but the familiar hills and mountains. The 
rivers, in the plains, overflowed their present banks; 
dense forests of oak and pine, haunted by great red 
deer, elks, and boars, covered land that has long been 
arable. There were lakes and lagoons where for cen- 
turies there have been fields of corn. On the oldest sites 
of our towns were groups of huts made of clay and 
wattle, and dominated, perhaps, by the large stockaded 
house of the tribal prince. In the lochs, natural 
islands, or artificial islets made of piles (crannogs), 
afforded standing-ground and protection to villages, if 
indeed these lake-dwellings are earlier in Scotland than 
the age of war that followed the withdrawal of the 
Romans. 

The natives were far beyond the savage stage of cul- 
ture. They lived in an age of iron tools and weapons 
and of wheeled vehicles ; and were in what is called the 
Late Celtic condition of art and culture, familiar to us 
from beautiful objects in bronze work, more commonly 
found in Ireland than in Scotland, and from the oldest 
Irish romances and poems. 

In these " epics " the manners much resemble those 



A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



described by Homer. Like his heroes, the men in the 
Cuchullain sagas fight from light chariots, drawn by 
two ponies, and we know that so fought the tribes 
in Scotland encountered by Agricola the Roman general 
(81-85 a.d.). It is even said in the Irish epics that 
Cuchullain learned his chariotry in Alba — that is, in 
our Scotland. 1 The warriors had " mighty limbs and 
flaming hair," says Tacitus. Their weapons were heavy 
iron swords, in bronze sheaths beautifully decorated, 
and iron-headed spears; they had large round bronze- 
studded shields, and battle-axes. The dress consisted 
of two upper garments: first, the smock, of linen or 
other fabric — in battle, often of tanned hides of 
animals, — and the mantle, or plaid, with its brooch. 
Golden torques and heavy gold bracelets were worn by 
the chiefs; the women had bronze ornaments with 
brightly coloured enamelled decoration. 

Agriculture was practised, and corn was ground in 
the circular querns of stone, of which the use so long 
survived. The women span and wove the gay smocks 
and darker cloaks of the warriors. 

Of the religion, we only know that it was a form 
of polytheism; that sacrifices were made, and that 
Druids existed; they were soothsayers, magicians, per- 
haps priests, and were attendant on kings. 

Such were the people in Alba whom we can dimly 
descry around Agricola's fortified frontier between the 
firths of Forth and Clyde, about 81-82 a.d. When 
Agricola pushed north of the Forth and Tay he still 

1 A good example of these Celtic romances is * The Tain Bo 
Cualgne.' 






THE ANTONINE VALLUM 3 

met men who had considerable knowledge of the art 
of war. In his battle at Mons Graupius (perhaps at 
the junction of Isla and Tay), his cavalry had the better 
of the native chariotry in the plain; and the native 
infantry, descending from their position on the heights, 
were attacked by his horsemen in their attempt to assail 
his rear. But they were swift of foot, the woods 
sheltered and the hills defended them. He made 
no more effectual pursuit than Cumberland did at 
Culloden. 

Agricola was recalled by Domitian after seven years' 
warfare, and his garrisons did not long hold their forts 
on his lines or frontier, which stretched across the 
country from Forth to Clyde ; roughly speaking, from 
Graham's Dyke, east of Borrowstounnis on the Firth of 
Forth, to Old Kilpatrick on Clyde. The region is now 
full of coal-mines, foundries, and villages; but excava- 
tions at Bar Hill, Castlecary, and Roughcastle disclose 
traces of Agricola's works, with their earthen ramparts. 
The Roman station at Camelon, north-west of Falkirk, 
was connected with the southern passes of the High- 
land hills by a road with a chain of forts. The remains 
of Roman pottery at Camelon are of the first century. 

Two generations after Agricola, about 140-145, the 
Roman Governor, Lollius Urbicus, refortified the line 
of Forth to Clyde with a wall of sods and a ditch, and 
forts much larger than those constructed by Agricola. 
His line, " the Antonine Vallum," had its works on 
commanding ridges; and fire-signals, in case of attack 
by the natives, flashed the news " from one sea to the 
other sea," while the troops of occupation could be 



4 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

provisioned from the Roman fleet. Judging by the 
coins found by the excavators, the line was abandoned 
about 190, and the forts were wrecked and dismantled, 
perhaps by the retreating Romans. 

After the retreat from the Antonine Vallum, about 
190, we hear of the vigorous " unrest " of the Meatse 
and Caledonians; the latter people are said, on very 
poor authority, to have been little better than savages. 
Against them Severus (208) made an expedition in- 
definitely far to the north, but the enemy shunned a 
general engagement, cut off small detachments, and 
caused the Romans terrible losses in this march to a 
non-existent Moscow. 

Not till 306 do we hear of the Picts, about whom 
there is infinite learning but little knowledge. They 
must have spoken Gaelic by Severus's time (208), 
whatever their original language; and were long rec- 
ognised in Galloway, where the hill and river names are 
Gaelic. 

The later years of the Romans, who abandoned 
Britain in 410, were perturbed by attacks of the Scoti 
(Scots) from Ireland, and it is to a settlement in 
Argyll of "Dalriadic" Scots from Ireland about 
500 a.d. that our country owes the name of Scot- 
land. 

Rome has left traces of her presence on Scottish 
soil — vestiges of the forts and vallum wall between the 
firths; a station rich in antiquities under the Eildons 
at Newstead; another, Ardoch, near Sheriffmuir; a 
third near Solway Moss (Birrenswark) ; and others 
less extensive, with some roads extending towards the 



TRACES OF ROMAN OCCUPATION 5 

Moray Firth; and a villa at Musselburgh, found in 
the reign of James VI. 1 

1 The best account of Roman military life in Scotland, from 
the time of Agricola to the invasion by Lollius Urbicus (140- 
158 a.d.), may be studied in Mr. Curie's * A Roman Frontier Post 
and Its People' (Maclehose, Glasgow, 1911). The relics, weapons, 
arms, pottery, and armour of Roman men, and the ornaments 
of the native women, are here beautifully reproduced. Dr. Mac- 
donald's excellent work, * The Roman Wall in Scotland' (Macle- 
hose, 1911), is also most interesting and instructive. 



CHAPTER II 

CHRISTIANITY — -THE RIVAL KINGDOMS 

To the Scots, through St. Columba, who, about 563, 
settled in Iona, and converted the Picts as far north as 
Inverness, we owe the introduction of Christianity, for 
though the Roman Church of St. Ninian (397), at 
Whithern in Galloway, left embers of the faith not ex- 
tinct near Glasgow, St. Kentigern's country, till 
Columba's time, the rites of Christian Scotland were 
partly of the Celtic Irish type, even after St. Wilfrid's 
victory at the Synod of Whitby (664<). 

St. Columba himself was of the royal line in Ulster, 
was learned, as learning was then reckoned, and, if he 
had previously been turbulent, he now desired to spread 
the Gospel. With twelve companions he settled in Iona, 
established his cloister of cells, and journeyed to Inver- 
ness, the capital of Pictland. Here his miracles over- 
came the magic of the king's druids ; and his Majesty, 
Brude, came into the fold, his people following him. 
Columba was no less of a diplomatist than of an evan- 
gelist. In a crystal he saw revealed the name of the 
rightful king of the Dalriad Scots in Argyll — namely, 
Aidan — and in 575, at Drumceat in North Ireland, he 
procured the recognition of Aidan, and brought the 
king of the Picts also to confess Aidan's independent 
royalty. 

In the 'Life of Columba,' by Adamnan, we get a 

6 



MIXTURE OF RACES 



clear and complete view of every-day existence in the 
Highlands during that age. We are among the red 
deer, and the salmon, and the cattle in the hills, among 
the second-sighted men, too, of whom Columba was far 
the foremost. We see the saint's inkpot upset by a 
clumsy but enthusiastic convert; we even make ac- 
quaintance with the old white pony of the monastery, 
who mourned when St. Columba was dying ; while among 
secular men we observe the differences in rank, meas- 
ured by degrees of wealth in cattle. Many centuries 
elapse before, in Froissart, we find a picture of Scot- 
land so distinct as that painted by Adamnan. 

The discipline of St. Columba was of the monastic 
model. There were settlements of clerics in fortified 
villages; the clerics were a kind of monks, with more 
regard for abbots than for their many bishops, and 
with peculiar tonsures, and a peculiar way of reckon- 
ing the date of Easter. Each missionary was popularly 
called a Saint, and the Kil, or cell, of many a Celtic 
missionary survives in hundreds of place-names. 

The salt-water Loch Leven in Argyll was on the 
west the south frontier of " Pictland," which, on the 
east, included all the country north of the Firth of 
Forth. From Loch Leven south to Kintyre, a large 
cantle, including the isles, was the land of the Scots 
from Ireland, the Dalriadic kingdom. The south-west, 
from Dumbarton, including our modern Cumberland 
and Westmoreland, was named Strathclyde, and was 
peopled by British folk, speaking an ancient form of 
Welsh. On the east, from Ettrick Forest into Lothian, 
the land was part of the early English kingdom of Ber- 



8 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

nicia ; here the invading Angles were already settled — 
though river-names here remain Gaelic, and hill-namef 
are often either Gaelic or Welsh. The great Northerr 
Pictland was divided into seven provinces, or sub-king- 
doms, while there was an over-king, or Ardrigh, witl 
his capital at Inverness and, later, in Angus or Forfar 
shire. The country about Edinburgh was partly Eng 
lish, partly Cymric or Welsh. The south-west corner 
Galloway, was called Pictish, and was peopled b} 
Gaelic-speaking tribes. 

In the course of time and events the dynasty of th< 
Argyll Scoti from Ireland gave its name to Scotland 
while the English element gave its language to th 
Lowlands ; it was adopted by the Celtic kings of th 
whole country and became dominant, while the Celti 
speech withdrew into the hills of the north and north 
west. 

The nation was thus evolved out of alien and hostil 
elements, Irish, Pictish, Gaelic, Cymric, English, anc 
on the northern and western shores, Scandinavian. 



CHAPTER III 



EARLY WARS OF RACES 



In a work of this scope, it is impossible to describe all 
the wars between the petty kingdoms peopled by races 
of various languages, which occupied Scotland. In 
603, in the wild moors at Degsastane, between the Lid- 
del burn and the passes of the Upper Tyne, the Eng- 
lish ^Ethelfrith of Deira, with an army of the still 
pagan ancestors of the Borderers, utterly defeated 
Aidan, King of Argyll, with the Christian converted 
Scots. Henceforth, for more than a century, the Eng- 
lish between Forth and Humber feared neither Scot 
of the west nor Pict of the north. 

On the death of vEthelfrith (617), the Christian 
west and north exercised their influences ; one of 
^Ethelfrith's exiled sons married a Pictish princess, and 
became father of a Pictish king; another, Oswald, was 
baptised at Iona; and the new king of the northern 
English of Lothian, Edwin, was converted by Paul- 
linus (627), and held Edinburgh as his capital. Later, 
after an age of war and ruin, Oswald, the convert of 
Iona, restored Christianity in northern England; and, 
after his fall, his brother, Oswiu, consolidated the north 
English. In 685 Oswiu's son Egfrith crossed the Forth 
and invaded Pictland with a Northumbrian army, but 
was routed with great loss, and was slain at Nectan's 
Mere, in Forfarshire. Thenceforth, till 761, the Picts 

9 



10 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

were dominant as against Scots and north English, 
Angus MacFergus being then their leader (731-761). 

Now the invaders and settlers from Scandinavia, the 
Northmen on the west coast, ravaged the Christian 
Scots of the west, and burned Iona ; finally, in 844-860, 
Kenneth MacAlpine of Kintyre, a Scot of Dalriada on 
the paternal, a Pict on the mother's side, defeated the 
Picts and obtained their throne. By Pictish law the 
crown descended in the maternal line, which probably 
facilitated the coronation of Kenneth. To the Scots 
and " to all Europe " he was a Scot ; to the Picts, as 
son of a royal Pictish mother, he was a Pict. With 
him, at all events, Scots and Picts were interfused, and 
there began the Scottish dynasty, supplanting the 
Pictish, though it is only in popular tales that the 
Picts were exterminated. 

Owing to pressure from the Northmen sea-rovers in 
the west, the capital and the seat of the chief bishop, 
under Kenneth MacAlpine (844-860), were moved east- 
wards from Iona to Scone, near Perth, and, after all 
interval at Dunkeld, to St. Andrews in Fife. 

The line of Kenneth MacAlpine, though disturbed by 
quarrels over the succession, and by Northmen in the 
west, north, and east, none the less in some way " held 
a good grip o' the gear " against Vikings, English of 
Lothian, and Welsh of Strathclyde. In consequence 
of a marriage with a Welsh princess of Strathclyde, 
or Cumberland, a Scottish prince, Donald, brother of 
Const antine II., became king of that realm (908), and 
his branch of the family of MacAlpine held Cumbria 
for a century. 



ENGLISH CLAIMS 11 



ENGLISH CLAIMS OVE& SCOTLAND 

In 984 the first claim by an English king, Edward, 
to the over-lordship of Scotland appears in the Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle. The entry contains a manifest error, 
and the topic causes war between modern historians, 
English and Scottish. In fact, there are several such 
entries of Scottish acceptance of English suzerainty 
under Constantine II., and later, but they all end in 
the statement, " this held not long." The " submis- 
sion " of Malcolm I. to Edmund (945) is not a sub- 
mission but an alliance; the old English word for 
" fellow-worker," or " ally," designates Malcolm as 
fellow-worker with Edward of England. 

This word (midwyrhta) was translated fidelis (one 
who gives fealty) in the Latin of English chroniclers 
two centuries later, but Malcolm I. held Cumberland 
as an ally, not as a subject prince of England. In 
1092 an English chronicle represents Malcolm III. as 
holding Cumberland " by conquest." 

The main fact is that out of these and similar dim 
transactions arose the claims of Edward I. to the over- 
lordship of Scotland, — claims that were urged by Queen 
Elizabeth's minister, Cecil, in 1568, and were boldly 
denied by Maitland of Lethington. From these misty 
pretensions came the centuries of war that made the 
hardy character of the folk of Scotland. 1 



1 For the Claims of Supremacy see Appendix C. to vol. i. of my 
'History of Scotland,' pp. 496-499. 



12 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



THE SCOTTISH ACQUISITION OF LOTHIAN 






We cannot pretend within our scope to follow 
chronologically " the fightings and flockings of kites 
and crows," in " a wolf-age, a war-age," when the 
Northmen from all Scandinavian lands, and the Danes, 
who had acquired much of Ireland, were flying at the 
throat of England and hanging on the flanks of Scot- 
land; while the Britons of Strathclyde struck in, and 
the Scottish kings again and again raided or sought 
to occupy the fertile region of Lothian between Forth 
and Tweed. If the dynasty of MacAlpine could win 
rich Lothian, with its English-speaking folk, they were 
" made men," they held the granary of the North. By 
degrees and by methods not clearly defined they did win 
the Castle of the Maidens, the acropolis of Dunedin, 
Edinburgh ; and fifty years later, in some way, appar- 
ently by the sword, at the battle of Carham (1018), 
in which a Scottish king of Cumberland fought by his 
side, Malcolm II. took possession of Lothian, the whole 
south-east region, by this time entirely anglified, and 
this was the greatest step in the making of Scotland. 
The Celtic dynasty now held the most fertile district 
between Forth and Tweed, a district already English in 
blood and speech, the centre and focus of the English 
civilisation accepted by the Celtic kings. Under this 
Malcolm, too, his grandson, Duncan, became ruler of 
Strathclyde — that is, practically, of Cumberland. 

Malcolm is said to have been murdered at haunted 
Glamis, in Forfarshire, in 1034; the room where he 



SLAYING OF DUNCAN 13 

died is pointed out by legend in the ancient castle. His 
rightful heir, by the strange system of the Scots, 
should have been, not his own grandson, Duncan, but 
the grandson of Kenneth III. The rule was that the 
crown went alternately to a descendant of the House 
of Constantine (863-877), son of Kenneth MacAlpine, 
and to a descendant of Constantine's brother, Aodh 
(877-888). These alternations went on till the crown- 
ing of Malcolm II. (1005-1034), and then ceased, for 
Malcolm II. had slain the unnamed male heir of the 
House of Aodh, a son of Boedhe, in order to open the 
succession to his own grandson, " the gracious Dun- 
can." Boedhe had left a daughter, Gruach; she had 
by the Mormaer, or under-king of the province of Mur- 
ray, a son, Lulach. On the death of the Mormaer she 
married Macbeth, and when Macbeth slew Duncan 
(1040), he was removing a usurper — as he understood 
it — and he ruled in the name of his stepson, Lulach. 
The power of Duncan had been weakened by repeated 
defeats at the hands of the Northmen under Thorfinn. 
In 1057 Macbeth was slain in battle at Lumphanan, 
in Aberdeenshire, and Malcolm Canmore, son of Dun- 
can, after returning from England, whither he had fled 
from Macbeth, succeeded to the throne. But he and 
his descendants for long were opposed by the House 
of Murray, descendants of Lulach, who himself had 
died in 1058. 

The world will always believe Shakespeare's version 
of these events, and suppose the gracious Duncan to 
have been a venerable old man, and Macbeth an am- 
bitious Thane, with a bloodthirsty wife, he himself 



14 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

being urged on by the predictions of witches. He was, 
in fact, Mormaer of Murray, and upheld the claims of 
his stepson Lulach, who was son of a daughter of the 
wrongfully extruded House of Aodh. 

Malcolm Canmore, Duncan's grandson, on the other 
hand, represented the European custom of direct lineal 
succession against the ancient Scots' mode. 



CHAPTER IV 

MALCOLM CANMORE NORMAN CONQUEST 

The reign of Malcolm Canmore (1057-1093) brought 
Scotland into closer connection with western Europe 
and western Christianity. The Norman Conquest 
(1066) increased the tendency of the English-speaking 
people of Lothian to acquiesce in the rule of a Celtic 
king, rather than in that of the adventurers who fol- 
lowed William of Normandy. Norman operations did 
not at first reach Cumberland, which Malcolm held; 
and, on the death of his Norse wife, the widow of Dun- 
can's foe, Thorfinn (she left a son, Duncan), Malcolm 
allied himself with the English Royal House by marry- 
ing Margaret, sister of Eadgar iEtheling, then engaged 
in the hopeless effort to rescue northern England from 
the Normans. The dates are confused: Malcolm may 
have won the beautiful sister of Eadgar, rightful king 
of England, in 1068, or at the time (1070) of his 
raid, said to have been of savage ferocity, into Nor- 
thumberland, and his yet more cruel reprisals for 
Gospatric's harrying of Cumberland. In either case, 
St. Margaret's biographer, who had lived at her Court, 
whether or not he was her Confessor, Turgot, repre- 
sents the Saint as subduing the savagery of Malcolm, 
who passed wakeful nights in weeping for his sins. A 
lover of books, which Malcolm could not read, an ex- 
pert in " the delicate, and gracious, and bright works 

15 



16 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



of women," Margaret brought her own gentleness and 
courtesy among a rude people, built the abbey church 
of Dunfermline, and presented the churches with many 
beautiful golden reliquaries and fine sacramental 
plate. 

In 1072, to avenge a raid of Malcolm (1070), the 
Conqueror, with an army and a fleet, came to Aber- 
nethy on Tay, where Malcolm, in exchange for English 
manors, " became his man " for them, and handed over 
his son Duncan as a hostage for peace. The English 
view is that Malcolm became William's " man for all 
that he had " — or for all south of Tay. 

After various raidings of northern England, and 
after the death of the Conqueror, Malcolm renewed, in 
Lothian, the treaty of Abernethy, being secured in his 
twelve English manors (1091). William Rufus then 
took and fortified Carlisle, seized part of Malcolm's 
lands in Cumberland, and summoned him to Gloucester, 
where the two kings, after all, quarrelled and did not 
meet. No sooner had Malcolm returned home than he 
led an army into Northumberland, where he was de- 
feated and slain, near Alnwick (November IB, 1093). 
His son Edward fell with him, and his wife, St. Mar- 
garet, died in Edinburgh Castle : her body, under cloud 
of night, was carried through the host of rebel Celts 
and buried at Dunfermline. 

Margaret, a beautiful and saintly Englishwoman, 
had been the ruling spirit of the reign in domestic 
and ecclesiastical affairs. She had civilised the Court, 
in matters of costume at least; she had read books to 
the devoted Malcolm, who could not read; and he had 



r*A 



DEATHS OF MARGARET AND MALCOLM \>j 

been her interpreter in her discussions with the Celtic- 
speaking clergy, whose ideas of ritual differed from 
her own. The famous Culdees, originally ascetic her- 
mits, had before this day united in groups living under 
canonical rules, and, according to English observers, 
had ceased to be bachelors. Masses are said to have 
been celebrated by them in some " barbarous rite " ; 
Saturday was Sabbath; on Sunday men worked. Lent 
began, not on Ash Wednesday, but on the Monday 
following. We have no clearer account of the Culdee 
peculiarities that St. Margaret reformed. The heredi- 
tary tenure of benefices by lay protectors she did not 
reform, but she restored the ruined cells of Iona and 
established hospitia for pilgrims. She was decidedly 
unpopular with her Celtic subjects, who now made a 
struggle against English influences. 

In the year of her death died Fothadh, the last Celtic 
bishop of St. Andrews, and the Celtic clergy were 
gradually superseded and replaced by monks of Eng- 
lish name, English speech, and English ideas — or rather 
the ideas of western Europe. Scotland, under Mar- 
garet's influence, became more Catholic ; the celibacy of 
the clergy was more strictly enforced (it had almost 
lapsed), but it will be observed throughout that, of 
all western Europe, Scotland was least overawed by 
Rome. Yet for centuries the Scottish Church was, in 
a peculiar degree, " the daughter of Rome," for not 
till about 1470 had she a Metropolitan, the Archbishop 
of St. Andrews. 

On the deaths, in one year, of Malcolm, Margaret, 
and Fothadh, the last Celtic bishop of St. Andrews, the 



18 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

see for many years was vacant or merely filled by tran- 
sient bishops. York and Canterbury were at feud for 
their superiority over the Scottish Church; and the 
other sees were not constituted and provided with bish- 
ops till the years 1115 (Glasgow), 1150, — Argyll not 
having a bishop till 1200. In the absence of a Metro- 
politan, episcopal elections had to be confirmed at 
Rome, which would grant no Metropolitan, but forbade 
the Archbishop of York to claim a superiority which 
would have implied, or prepared the way for, English 
superiority over Scotland. Meanwhile the expenses 
and delays of appeals from bishops direct to Rome did 
not stimulate the affection of the Scottish " daughter 
of Rome." The rights of the chapters of the Cathe- 
drals to elect their bishops, and other appointments to 
ecclesiastical offices, in course of time were transferred 
to the Pope, who negotiated with the king, and thus 
all manner of jobbery increased, the nobles influencing 
the king in favour of their own needy younger sons, 
and the Pope being amenable to various secular per- 
suasions, so that in every way the relations of Scot- 
land with the Holy Father were anomalous and irk- 
some. 

Scotland was, indeed, a country predestined to much 
ill fortune, to tribulations against which human fore- 
sight could erect no defence. But the marriage of the 
Celtic Malcolm with the English Margaret, and the 
friendly arrival of great nobles from the south, enabled 
Scotland to receive the new ideas of feudal law in pa- 
cific fashion. They were not violently forced upon the 
English-speaking people of Lothian. 



THE SCOTTISH CHURCH 19 



DYNASTY OP MALCOLM 



On the death of Malcolm the contest for the Crown 
lay between his brother, Donald Ban, supported by the 
Celts ; his son Duncan by his first wife, a Norse woman 
(Duncan being then a hostage at the English Court, 
who was backed by William Ruf us ) ; and thirdly, Mal- 
colm's eldest son by Margaret, Eadmund, the favourite 
with the anglicised south of the country. Donald Ban, 
after a brief period of power, was driven out by Dun- 
can (1094); Duncan was then slain by the Celts 
(1094). Donald was next restored, north of Forth, 
Eadmund ruling in the south, but was dispossessed and 
blinded by Malcolm's son Eadgar, who reigned for ten 
years (1097-1107), while Eadmund died in an English 
cloister. Eadgar had trouble enough on all sides, but 
the process of anglicising continued, under himself, 
and later, under his brother, Alexander I., who ruled 
north of Forth and Clyde ; while the youngest brother, 
David, held Lothian and Cumberland, with the title 
of Earl. The sister of those sons of Malcolm, Eadgyth 
(Matilda), married Henry I. of England in 1100. 
There seemed a chance that, north of Clyde and Forth, 
there would be a Celtic kingdom; while Lothian and 
Cumbria would be merged in England. Alexander was 
mainly engaged in fighting the Moray claimants of his 
crown in the north and in planting his religious houses, 
notably St. Andrews, with English Augustinian canons 
from York. Canterbury and York contended for eccle- 
siastical superiority over Scotland; after various ad- 



20 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ventures, Robert, the prior of the Augustinians at 
Scone, was made Bishop of St. Andrews, being conse- 
crated by Canterbury, in 1124; while York consecrated 
David's bishop in Glasgow. Thanks to the quarrels of 
the sees of York and Canterbury, the Scottish clergy 
managed to secure their ecclesiastical independence 
from either English see; and became, finally, the most 
useful combatants in the long struggle for the inde- 
pendence of the nation. Rome, on the whole, backed 
that cause. The Scottish Catholic churchmen, in fact, 
pursued the old patriotic policy of resistance to Eng- 
land till the years just preceding the Reformation, 
when the people leaned to the reformed doctrines, and 
when Scottish national freedom was endangered more 
by France than by England. 



CHAPTER V 

DAVID I. AND HIS TIMES 

With the death of Alexander I. (April 25, 1124) and 
the accession of his brother, David I., the deliberate 
royal policy of introducing into Scotland English law 
and English institutions, as modified by the Norman 
rulers, was fulfilled. David, before Alexander's death, 
was earl of the most English part of Lothian, the 
country held by Scottish kings, and Cumbria ; and re- 
sided much at the Court of his brother-in-law, Henry I. 
He associated, when earl, with nobles of Anglo- 
Norman race and language, such as Moreville, Umfra- 
ville, Somerville, Gospatric, Bruce, Balliol, and others ; 
men with a stake in both countries, England and Scot- 
land. On coming to the throne, David endowed these 
men with charters of lands in Scotland. With him 
came a cadet of the great Anglo-Breton House of 
FitzAlan, who obtained the hereditary office of Senes- 
chal or Steward of Scotland. His patronymic, Fitz- 
Alan, merged in Stewart (later Stuart), and the family 
cognizance, the fesse chequy in azure and argent, rep- 
resents the Board of Exchequer. The earliest Stewart 
holdings of land were mainly in Renfrewshire; those 
of the Bruces were in Annandale. These two Anglo- 
Norman houses between them were to found the Stewart 
dynasty. 

The wife of David, Matilda, widow of Simon de St. 

21 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Liz, was heiress of Waltheof, sometime the Conqueror's 
Earl in Northumberland; and to gain, through that 
connection, Northumberland for himself was the chief 
aim of David's foreign policy, — an aim fertile in 
contentions. 

We have not space to disentangle the intricacies of 
David's first great domestic struggles; briefly, there 
was eternal dispeace caused by the Celts, headed by 
claimants to the throne, the MacHeths, representing 
the rights of Lulach, the ward of Macbeth. 1 In 1130 
the Celts were defeated, and their leader, Angus, Earl 
of Moray, fell in fight near the North Esk in Forfar- 
shire. His brother, Malcolm, by aid of David's Anglo- 
Norman friends, was taken and imprisoned in Rox- 
burgh Castle. The result of this rising was that David 
declared the great and ancient Celtic Earldom of 
Moray — the home of his dynastic Celtic rivals — forfeit 
to the Crown. He planted the region with English, 
Anglo-Norman, and Lowland landholders, a great step 
in the anglicisation of his kingdom. Thereafter, for 
several centuries, the strength of the Celts lay in the 
west in Moidart, Knoydart, Morar, Mamore, Lochaber, 
and Kintyre, and in the western islands, which fell into 
the hands of " the sons of Somerled," the Macdonalds. 

In 1135-1136, on the death of Henry I., David, back- 
ing his own niece, Matilda, as Queen of England in 
opposition to Stephen, crossed the Border in arms, but 
was bought off. His son Henry received the Honour 
of Huntingdon, with the Castle of Carlisle, and a 

1 Lord Reay, according to the latest book on Scottish peerages, 
represents these MacHeths or Mackays. 



BATTLE OF THE STANDARD (1138) 23 

vague promise of consideration of his claim to Nor- 
thumberland. In 1138, after a disturbed interval, David 
led the whole force of his realm, from Orkney to Gallo- 
way, into Yorkshire. His Angle-Norman friends, the 
Balliols and Bruces, with the Archbishop of York, now 
opposed him and his son Prince Henry. On August 
22, 1138, at Cowton Moor, near Northallerton, was 
fought the great battle, named from the huge English 
sacred banner, " The Battle of the Standard." 

In a military sense, the fact that here the men-at- 
arms and knights of England fought as dismounted 
infantry, their horses being held apart in reserve, is 
notable as preluding to the similar English tactics in 
their French wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries. 

Thus arrayed, the English received the impetuous 
charge of the wild Galloway men, not in armour, who 
claimed the right to form the van, and broke through 
the first line only to die beneath the spears of the 
second. But Prince David with his heavy cavalry scat- 
tered the force opposed to him, and stampeded the 
horses of the English that were held in reserve. This 
should have been fatal to the English, but Henry, like 
Rupert at Marston Moor, pursued too far, and the 
discipline of the Scots was broken by the cry that their 
king had fallen, and they fled. David fought his way 
to Carlisle in a series of rearguard actions, and at 
Carlisle was joined by Prince Henry with the remnant 
of his men-at-arms. It was no decisive victory for 
England. 

In the following year (1139) David got what he 



24 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

wanted. His son Henry, by peaceful arrangement, re- 
ceived the Earldom of Northumberland, without the 
two strong places, Bamborough and Newcastle. 

Through the anarchic weakness of Stephen's reign, 
Scotland advanced in strength and civilisation despite 
a Celtic rising headed by a strange pretender to the 
rights of the MacHeths, a u brother Wimund " ; but 
all went with the death of David's son, Prince Henry, 
in 1152. Of the prince's three sons, the eldest, Mal- 
colm, was but ten years old; next came his brothers 
William (" the Lion ") and little David, Earl of Hunt- 
ingdon. From this David's daughters descended the 
chief claimants to the Scottish throne in 1292 — namely, 
Balliol, Bruce, and Comyn: the last also was de- 
scended, in the female line, from King Donald Ban, son 
of Malcolm Canmore. 

David had done all that man might do to settle the 
crown on his grandson Malcolm; his success meant 
that standing curse of Scotland, " Woe to the kingdom 
whose king is a child," — when, in a year, David died 
at Carlisle (May 24, 1153). 



SCOTLAND BECOMES FEUDAL 

The result of the domestic policy of David was to 
bring all accessible territory under the social and po- 
litical system of western Europe, " the Feudal System." 
Its principles had been perfectly familiar to Celtic 
Scotland, but had rested on a body of traditional cus- 
toms (as in Homeric Greece), rather than on written 



FEUDAL SCOTLAND 25 

laws and charters signed and sealed. Among the Celts 
the local tribe had been, theoretically, the sole source 
of property in land. In proportion as they were near 
of kin to the recognised tribal chief, families held lands 
by a tenure of three generations ; but if they managed 
to acquire abundance of oxen, which they let out to 
poorer men for rents in kind and labour, they were apt 
to turn the lands which they held only temporarily, 
I in possession," into real permanent property, The 
poorer tribesmen paid rent in labour or " services," 
also in supplies of food and manure. 

The Celtic tenants also paid military service to their 
superiors. The remotest kinsmen of each lord of land, 
poor as they might be, were valued for their swords, 
and were billeted on the unfree or servile tenants, who 
gave them free quarters. 

In the feudal system of western Europe these old 
traditional customs had long been modified and stereo- 
typed by written charters. The king gave gifts of 
land to his kinsmen or officers, who were bound to be 
" faithful " (fideles) ; in return the inferior did homage, 
while he received protection. From grade to grade of 
rank and wealth each inferior did homage to and re- 
ceived protection from his superior, who was also his 
judge. In this process, what had been the Celtic tribe 
became the new "thanage"; the Celtic king (righ) of 
the tribe became the thane; the province or group of 
tribes (say Moray) became the earldom; the Celtic 
Mormaer of the province became the earl; and the 
Crown appointed vice-comites, sub-earls, that is sher- 
iffs, who administered the king's justice in the earldom. 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

But there were regions, notably the west Highlands 
and isles, where the new system penetrated slowly anc 
with difficulty through a mountainous and almost town 
less land. The law, and written leases, " came slowly 
up that way." 

Under David, where his rule extended, society wai 
divided broadly into three classes — Nobles, Free, Un 
free. All holders of " a Knight's fee," or part of one 
holding] ^ fn$& service, hereditarily, and by charter 
const r ^a the communitas of the realm (we are t( 
hear of the communitas later), and were free, noble, o; 
gentle, — men of coat armour. The " ignoble," " no 
noble," men with no charter from the Crown, or Earl 
Thane, or Church, were, if lease-holders, though no 
" noble," still " free." Beneath them were the " un 
free " nativi, sold or given with the soil. 

The old Celtic landholders were not expropriated, ai 
a rule, except where Celtic risings, in Galloway am 
Moray, were put down, and the lands were left in th< 
king's hands. Often, when we find territorial surname; 
of families, " de " " of " this place or that, — the lord, 
are really of Celtic blood with Celtic names ; disguisec 
under territorial titles; and finally disused. But ii 
Galloway and Ayrshire the ruling Celtic name, Ken 
nedy, remains Celtic, while the true Highlands of th< 
west and northwest retained their native magnates 
Thus the Anglicisation, except in very rebellious re 
gions, was gradual. There was much less expropria 
tion of the Celt than disguising of the Celt under ne^ 
family names and regulation of the Celt under writ 
ten charters and leases. 



CHURCH LANDS 27 



CHURCH LANDS 

David I. was, according to James VI. , nearly five 
centuries later, " a sair saint for the Crown." He gave 
Crown-lands in the southern Lowlands to the religious 
orders with their priories and abbeys ; for example, 
Holy rood, Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso, and Dryburgh — 
centres of learning and art and of'ik 1 " ec* c /'Culture. 
Probably the best service if the regular clei fe ^ rT oO the 
State was its orderliness and attention to agriculture, 
for the monasteries did not, as in England, produce 
many careful chroniclers and historians. 

Each abbey had its lands divided into baronies, cap- 
tained by a lay " Church baron " to lead its levies 
in war. The civil centre of the barony was the great 
farm or grange, with its mill, for in the thirteenth 
century the Lowlands had water-mills which to the 
west Highlands were scarcely known in 1745, when 
the Highland husbandmen were still using the primi- 
tive hand-quern of two circular stones. Near the mill 
was a hamlet of some forty cottages ; each head of a 
family had a holding of eight or nine acres and pas- 
turage for two cows, and paid a small money rent and 
many arduous services to the abbey. 

The tenure of these cottars was, and under lay land- 
lords long remained, extremely precarious ; but the 
tenure of the "bonnet laird" (hosbernus) was heredi- 
tary. Below even the free cottars were the unf ree serfs 
or nativi, who were handed over, with the lands they 
tilled, to the abbeys by benefactors: the Church was 



28 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

forward in emancipating these serfs ; nor were lay land- 
lords backward, for the freed man was useful as a 
spearman in war. 

We have only to look at the many now ruined abbeys 
of the Border to see the extent of civilisation under 
David L, and the relatively peaceful condition, then, 
of that region which later became the cockpit of the 
English wars, and the home of the raiding clans, Scotts, 
Elliots, and Armstrongs, Bells, Nixons, Robsons, and 
Croziers. 

THE BURGHS 

David and his son and successor, William the Lion, 
introduced a stable middle and urban class by foster- 
ing, confirming, and regulating the rights, privileges, 
and duties of the already existing free towns. These 
became burghs, royal, seigniorial, or ecclesiastical. In 
origin the towns may have been settlements that grew 
up under the shelter of a military castle. Their fairs, 
markets, rights of trading, internal organisation, and 
primitive police, were now, mainly under William the 
Lion, David's successor, regulated by charters; the 
burghers obtained the right to elect their own magis- 
trates, and held their own burgh-courts ; all was done 
after the English model. As the State had its " good 
men " (probi homines), who formed its recognised 
" community," so had the borough. Not by any means 
all dwellers in a burgh were free burghers ; these free 
burghers had to do service in guarding the royal castle 
— later this was commuted for a payment in money. 



BURGHS AND JUSTICE 29 

Though with power to elect their own chief magistrate, 
the burghers commonly took as Provost the head of 
some friendly local noble family, in which the office was 
apt to become practically hereditary. The noble was 
the leader and protector of the town. As to police, 
the burghers, each in his turn, provided men to keep 
watch and ward from curfew bell to cock-crow. Each 
ward in the town had its own elected Bailie. Each 
burgh had exclusive rights of trading in its area, and 
of taking toll on merchants coming within its Octroi. 
An association of four burghs, Berwick, Roxburgh, 
Edinburgh, and Stirling, was the root of the existing 
I Convention of Burghs." 



JUSTICE 

In early societies, justice is, in many respects, an 
affair to be settled between the kindreds of the plaintiff, 
so to speak, and the defendant. A man is wounded, 
killed, robbed, wronged in any way; his kin retaliate 
on the offender and his kindred. The blood-feud, the 
taking of blood for blood, endured for centuries in 
Scotland after the peace of the whole realm became, 
under David I., " the King's peace." Homicides, for 
example, were very frequently pardoned by royal 
grace, but " the pardon was of no avail unless it had 
been issued with the full knowledge of the kin of the 
slaughtered man, who otherwise retained their legal 
right of vengeance on the homicide." They might ac- 
cept pecuniary compensation, the blood-fine, or they 



30 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

might not, as in Homer's time. 1 At all events, under 
David, offences became offences against the king, not 
merely against this or that kindred. David intro- 
duced the " Judgment of the Country " or Visnet del 
Pais for the settlement of pleas. Every free man, in 
his degree, was " tried by his peers," but the old or- 
deal by fire and trial by combat or duel were not 
abolished. Nor did " compurgation " cease wholly till 
Queen Mary's reign. A powerful man, when accused, 
was then attended at his trial by hosts of armed back- 
ers. Men so unlike each other as Knox, Bothwell, and 
Lethington took advantage of this usage. All lords 
had their own courts, but murder, rape, arson, and 
robbery could now only be tried in the royal courts; 
these were " The Four Pleas of the Crown." 



THE COURTS 

As there was no fixed capital, the King's Court, in 
David's time, followed the king in his annual circuits 
through his realm, between Dumfries and Inverness. 
Later, the regions of Scotia (north of Forth), Lothian, 
and the lawless realm of Galloway, had their Grand 
Justiciaries, who held the Four Pleas. The other pleas 
were heard in "Courts of Royalty" and by earls, 
bishops, abbots, down to the baron, with his " right of 
pit and gallows." At such courts, by a law of 1180, 
the sheriff of the shire, or an agent of his, ought to be 

14 Iliad,' xviii. 496-500. 



THE COURTS 31 

present; so that royal and central justice was extend- 
ing itself over the minor local courts. But if the 
sheriff or his sergeant did not attend when summoned, 
local justice took its course. 

The process initiated by David's son, William the 
Lion, was very slowly substituting the royal authority, 
the royal sheriffs of shires, juries, and witnesses, for 
the wild justice of revenge; and trial by ordeal, and 
trial by combat. But hereditary jurisdictions of no- 
bles and gentry were not wholly abolished till after 
the battle of Culloden! Where abbots held courts, 
their procedure, in civil cases, was based on laws sanc- 
tioned by popes and general councils. But, alas ! the 
abbot might give just judgment; to execute it, we 
know from a curious instance, was not within his 
power, if the offender laughed at a sentence of ex- 
communication. 

David and his successors, till the end of the thir- 
teenth century, made Scotland a more civilised and kept 
it a much less disturbed country than it was to remain 
during the long war of Independence, while the beau- 
tiful abbeys with their churches and schools attested 
a high stage of art and education. 



CHAPTER VI 

MALCOLM THE MAIDEN 

The prominent facts in the brief reign of David's son 
Malcolm the Maiden, crowned (1153) at the age of 
eleven, were, first, a Celtic rising by Donald, a son of 
Malcolm MacHeth (now a prisoner in Roxburgh 
Castle), and a nephew of the famous Somerled Mac- 
gillebride of Argyll. Somerled won from the Norse the 
Isle of Man and the southern Hebrides ; from his sons 
descend the great Macdonald Lords of the Isles, al- 
ways the leaders of the long Celtic resistance to the 
central authority in Scotland. Again, Malcolm re- 
signed to Henry II. of England the northern counties 
held by David I.; and died after subduing Galloway, 
and (on the death of Somerled, said to have been as- 
sassinated) the tribes of the isles in 1165. 

WILLIAM THE LION 

Ambition to recover the northern English counties 
revealed itself in the overtures of William the Lion, — 
Malcolm's brother and successor, — for an alliance be- 
tween Scotland and France. " The auld Alliance " now 
dawned, with rich promise of good and evil. In 
hopes of French aid, William invaded Northumberland, 
later laid siege to Carlisle, and on July 13, 1174, was 
surprised in a morning mist and captured at Alnwick. 

32 



REIGN OF WILLIAM 33 

Scotland was now kingless ; Galloway rebelled, and 
William, taken a captive to Falaise in Normandy, sur- 
rendered absolutely the independence of his country, 
which, for fifteen years, really was a fief of England. 
When William was allowed to go home, it was to fight 
the Celts of Galloway, and subdue the pretensions, in 
Moray, of the MacWilliams, descendants of William, 
son of Duncan, son of Malcolm Canmore. 

During William's reign (1188) Pope Clement III. 
decided that the Scottish Church was subject, not to 
York or Canterbury, but to Rome. Seven years earlier, 
defending his own candidate for the see of St. Andrews 
against the chosen of the Pope, William had been ex- 
communicated, and his country and he had unconcern- 
edly taken the issue of an interdict. The Pope was 
too far away, and William feared him no more than 
Robert Bruce was to do. 

By 1188, William refused to pay to Henry II. a 
f Saladin Tithe " for a crusade, and in 1189 he bought 
from Richard I., who needed money for a crusade, the 
abrogation of the Treaty of Falaise. He was still dis- 
turbed by Celts in Galloway and the north, he still 
hankered after Northumberland, but, after prepara- 
tions for war, he paid a fine and drifted into friend- 
ship with King John, who entertained his little daugh- 
ters royally, and knighted his son Alexander. Wil- 
liam died on December 4, 1214. He was buried at 
the Abbey of Arbroath, founded by him in honour of 
St. Thomas of Canterbury, who had worked a strange 
posthumous miracle in Scotland. William was suc- 
ceeded by his son, Alexander II. (1214-1249). 



34 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ALEXANDER II 

Under this prince, who successfully put down the 
usual northern risings, the old suit about the claims 
to Northumberland was finally abandoned for a trifling 
compensation (1237). Alexander had married Joanna, 
daughter of King John, and his brother-in-law, Henry 
III., did not press his demand for homage for Scot- 
land. The usual Celtic pretenders to the throne were 
for ever crushed. Argyll became a sheriffdom, Gallo- 
way was brought into order, and Alexander, who died 
in the Isle of Kerrera in the bay of Oban (1249), well 
deserved his title of " a King of Peace." He was 
buried in Melrose Abbey. In his reign the clergy were 
allowed to hold Provincial or Synodal Councils with- 
out the presence of a papal Legate (1225), and the 
Dominicans and Franciscans appeared in Scotland. 

ALEXANDER HI 

The term King of Peace was also applied to Alexan- 
der III., son of the second wife of Alexander II., Marie 
de Coucy. Alexander came to the throne (1249) at 
the age of eight. As a child he was taken and held 
(like James II., James III., James V., and James VI.) 
by contending factions of the nobles, Henry of Eng- 
land intervening. In 1251 he wedded another child, 
Margaret, daughter of Henry III. of England, but 
Henry neither forced a claim to hold Scotland during 
the boy's minority (his right if Scotland were his fief), 



ALEXANDER TAKES THE WESTERN ISLES 35 

nor in other respects pressed his advantage. In Febru- 
ary 1261-1262 a girl was born to Alexander at Wind- 
sor; she was Margaret, later wife of Eric of Norway. 
Her daughter, on the death of Alexander III. (March 
19, 1286), was the sole direct descendant in the male 
line. 

After the birth of this heiress, Alexander won from 
Norway the isles of the western coast of Scotland in 
which Norse chieftains had long held sway. They com- 
plained to Hakon of Norway concerning raids made 
on them by the Earl of Ross, a Celtic potentate, 
Alexander's envoys to Hakon were detained, and in 
1263, Hakon, with a great fleet, sailed through the 
islands. A storm blew most of his Armada to shore 
hear Largs, where his men were defeated by the Scots. 
Hakon collected his ships, sailed north, and (Decem- 
ber 15) died at Kirkwall. Alexander now brought the 
island princes, including the Lord of Man, into sub- 
jection; and by treaty, in 1266, placed them under 
the Crown. In 1275 Benemund de Vicci (called Bagi- 
mont), at a council in Perth, compelled the clergy to 
pay a tithe for a crusade, the Pope insisting that the 
money should be assessed on the true value of benefices 
— that is, on " Bagimont's Roll," — thenceforth recog- 
nised as the basis of clerical taxation. In 1278 
Edward I. laboured to extract from Alexander an ac- 
knowledgment that he was England's vassal. Ed- 
ward signally failed; but a palpably false account of 
Alexander's homage was fabricated, and dated Sep- 
tember 29, 1278. This was not the only forgery by 
which England was wont to back her claims. 



36 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

A series of bereavements (1S81-1283) deprived Alex- 
ander of all his children save his little grandchild, 
" the Maid of Norway." She was recognised by a 
great national assembly at Scone as heiress of the 
throne ; and Alexander had no issue by his second wife, 
a daughter of the Comte de Dreux. On the night 
of March 19, 1285, while Alexander was riding from 
Edinburgh to visit his bride at Kinghorn, his horse 
slipped over a cliff and the rider was slain. 



CHAPTER VII 

ENCROACHMENTS OF EDWARD I. WALLACE 

The Estates of Scotland met at Scone (April 11, 1286) 
and swore loyalty to their child queen, " the Maid of 
Norway," granddaughter of Alexander III. Six guard- 
ians of the kingdom were appointed on April 11, 1286. 
They were the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, 
two Comyns (Buchan and Badenoch), the Earl of Fife, 
and Lord James, the Steward of Scotland. No Bruce 
or Balliol was among the Custodians. Instantly a 
" band," or covenant, was made by the Bruces, Earls 
of Annandale and Carrick, to support their claims 
(failing the Maid) to the throne; and there were acts 
of war on their part against another probable can- 
didate, John Balliol. Edward (like Henry VIII. in the 
case of Mary Stuart) moved for the marriage of the 
infant queen to his son. A treaty safeguarding all 
Scottish liberties as against England was made by 
clerical influences at Birgham (July 18, 1290), but 
by October 7 news of the death of the young queen 
reached Scotland: she had perished during her voyage 
from Norway. Private war now broke out between 
the Bruces and Balliols ; and the party of Balliol ap- 
pealed to Edward, through Fraser, Bishop of St. 
Andrews, asking the English king to prevent civil war, 
and recommending Balliol as a person to be carefully 
treated. Next the Seven Earls, alleging some dim 

37 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

elective right, recommended Bruce, and appealed to 
Edward as their legal superior. 

Edward came to Norham-on-Tweed in May 1291, 
proclaimed himself Lord Paramount, and was accepted 
as such by the twelve candidates for the Crown (June 
3). The great nobles thus, to serve their ambitions, 
betrayed their country: the communitas (whatever that 
term may here mean) made a futile protest. 

As lord among his vassals, Edward heard the plead- 
ings and evidence in autumn 1292; and out of the de- 
scendants, in the female line, of David Earl of 
Huntingdon, youngest son of David I., he finally (No- 
vember 17, 1292) preferred John Balliol (great-grand- 
son of the earl through his eldest daughter) to Bruce 
the Old, grandfather of the famous Robert Bruce, and 
grandson of Earl David's second daughter. The deci- 
sion, according to our ideas, was just; no modern court 
could set it aside. But Balliol was an unpopular weak- 
ling — " an empty tabard," the people said — and 
Edward at once subjected him, king as he was, to all 
the humiliations of a petty vassal. He was summoned 
into his Lord's Court on the score of the bills of trades- 
men. If Edward's deliberate policy was to goad Balliol 
into resistance and then conquer Scotland absolutely, 
in the first of these aims he succeeded* 

In 1294 Balliol was summoned, with his Peers, to 
attend Edward in Gascony. Balliol, by advice of a 
council (1295), sought a French alliance and a French 
marriage for his son, named Edward; he gave the 
Annandale lands of his enemy Robert Bruce (father 
of the king-to-be) to Comyn, Earl of Buchan. He be- 



WALLACE 39 

sieged Carlisle, while Edward took Berwick, massacred 
the people, and captured Sir William Douglas, father 
of the good Lord James. 

In the war which followed, Edward broke down 
resistance by a sanguinary victory at Dunbar, captured 
John Comyn of Badenoch (the Red Comyn), received 
from Balliol (July 7, 1296) the surrender of his royal 
claims, and took the oaths of the Steward of Scotland 
and the Bruces, father and son. He carried to West- 
minster the Black Rood of St. Margaret and the fa- 
mous stone of Scone, a relic of the early Irish dynasty 
of the Scots ; as far north as Elgin he rode, receiving 
the oaths of all persons of note and influence — except 
William Wallace. His name does not appear in the 
list of submissions called " The Ragman's Roll." Be- 
tween April and October 1296 the country was sub- 
jugated; the castles were garrisoned by Englishmen. 
But by January 1297 Edward's governor, Warenne, 
Earl of Surrey, and Ormsby, his Chief Justice, found 
the country in an uproar, and at midsummer 1297 the 
levies of the northern counties of England were ordered 
to put down the disorders. 



THE YEAR OF WALLACE 

In May the commune of Scotland (whatever the term 
may here mean) had chosen Wallace as their leader; 
probably this younger son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of 
Elderslie, in Renfrewshire, had already been distin- 
guished for his success in skirmishes against the Eng- 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

lish, as well as for strength and courage. 1 The popular 
account of his early adventures given in the poem by 
Blind Harry (1490?) is of no historical value. His men 
destroyed the English at Lanark (May 1297) ; he was 
abetted by Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, and the Stew- 
ard; but by July 7 Percy and Clifford, leading the 
English army, admitted the Steward, Robert Bruce 
(the future king), and Wishart to the English peace at 
Irvine in Ayrshire. But the North was up under Sir 
Andrew Murray, and " that thief Wallace " (to quote 
an English contemporary) left the siege of Dundee 
Castle which he was conducting to face Warenne on 
the north bank of the Forth. On September 11, the 
English, under Warenne, manoeuvred vaguely at Stir- 
ling Bridge, and were caught on the flank by Wallace's 
army before they could deploy on the northern side 
of the river. They were cut to pieces, Cressingham was 
slain, and Warenne galloped to Berwick, while the Scots 
harried Northumberland with great ferocity, which 
Wallace seems to have been willing but not often able 
to control. By the end of March 1298 he appears 
with Andrew Murray as Guardian of the Kingdom for 
the exiled Balliol. This attitude must have aroused the 
jealousy of the nobles, and especially of Robert Bruce, 
who aimed at securing the crown, and who, after sev- 
eral changes of side, by June 1298 was busy in Ed- 
ward's service in Galloway. 

1 As Waleys was then an English as much as a Scottish name, I 
see no reason for identifying the William le Waleys, outlawed for 
bilking a poor woman who kept a beer house (Perth, June- August, 
1296), with the great historical hero of Scotland. 



PERFIDY OF BRUCE 41 

Edward then crossed the Border with a great army 
of perhaps 40,000 men, met the spearmen of Wallace 
in their serried phalanxes at Falkirk, broke the 
" schiltrom " or clump of spears by the arrows of his 
archers; slaughtered the archers of Ettrick Forest; 
scattered the mounted nobles, and avenged the rout of 
Stirling (July 22, 1298). The country remained un- 
subdued, but its leaders were at odds among themselves, 
and Wallace had retired to France, probably to ask 
for aid; he may also conceivably have visited Rome. 
The Bishop of St. Andrews, Lamberton, with Bruce 
and the Red Comyn — deadly rivals — were Guardians 
of the Kingdom in 1299. But in June 1300 Edward, 
undeterred by remonstrances from the Pope, entered 
Scotland; an armistice, however, was accorded to the 
Holy Father, and the war, in which the Scots scored 
a victory at Roslin in February 1293, dragged on from 
summer to summer till July 1304. In these years Bruce 
alternately served Edward and conspired against him; 
the intricacies of his perfidy are deplorable. 

Bruce served Edward during the siege of Stirling, 
then the central key of the country. On its surrender 
Edward admitted all men to his peace, on condition 
of oaths of fealty, except " Messire Williame le Wa- 
leys." Men of the noblest Scottish names stooped to 
pursue the hero: he was taken near Glasgow, and 
handed over to Sir John Menteith, a Stewart, and son 
of the Earl of Menteith. As Sheriff of Dumbarton- 
shire, Menteith had no choice but to send the hero in 
bonds to England. But, if Menteith desired to escape 
the disgrace with which tradition brands his name, he 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ought to have refused the English blood-price for the 
capture of Wallace. He made no such refusal. As an 
outlaw, Wallace was hanged at London ; his limbs, like 
those of the great Montrose, were impaled on the gates 
of various towns. 

What we really know about the chief popular hero 
of his country, from documents and chronicles, is frag- 
mentary ; and it is hard to find anything trustworthy in 
Blind Harry's rhyming " Wallace " (1490), plagiarised 
as it is from Barbour's earlier poem (1370) on Bruce. 1 
But Wallace was truly brave, disinterested, and in- 
domitable. Alone among the leaders he never turned 
his coat, never swore and broke oaths to Edward. He 
arises from obscurity, like Jeanne d'Arc; like her, he 
is greatly victorious ; like her, he awakens a whole peo- 
ple; like her, he is deserted, and is unlawfully put to 
death; while his limbs, like her ashes, are scattered by 
the English. The ravens had not pyked his bones bare 
before the Scots were up again for freedom. 

1 See Dr Neilson on " Blind Harry's Wallace," in * Essays and 
Studies by Members of the English Association,' p. 85 ff. (Ox- 
ford, 1910.) 



CHAPTER VIII 

BRUCE AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

The position towards France of Edward I. made it 
really more desirable for him that Scotland should be 
independent and friendly, than half subdued and hostile 
to his rule. While she was hostile, England, in attack- 
ing France, always left an enemy in her rear. But 
Edward supposed that by clemency to all the Scottish 
leaders except Wallace, by giving them great appoint- 
ments and trusting them fully, and by calling tl 3m to 
his Parliament in London, he could combine England 
and Scotland in affectionate union. He repaired the 
ruins of war in Scotland; he began to study her laws 
and customs ; he hastily ran up for her a new con- 
stitution, and appointed his nephew, John of Brittany, 
as governor. But he had overlooked two facts: the 
Scottish clergy, from the highest to the lowest, were 
irreconcilably opposed to union with England; and the 
greatest and most warlike of the Scottish nobles, if not 
patriotic, were fickle and insatiably ambitious. It is hard 
to reckon how often Robert Bruce had turned his coat, 
and how often the Bishop of St. Andrews had taken 
the oath to Edward. Both men were in Edward's fa- 
vour in June 1304, but in that month they made against 
him a treasonable secret covenant. Through 1305 
Bruce prospered in Edward's service; on February 10, 
1306, Edward was conferring on him a new favour, 

43 



44 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

little guessing that Bruce, after some negotiation with 
his old rival, the Red Comyn, had slain him (an uncle 
of his was also butchered) before the high altar of the; 
Church of the Franciscans in Dumfries. Apparently 
Bruce had tried to enlist Comyn in his conspiracy, and 
had found him recalcitrant, or feared that he would 
be treacherous (February 10, 1306). 

The sacrilegious homicide made it impossible for 
Bruce again to waver. He could not hope for pardon ; 
he must be victorious or share the fate of Wallace. He 
summoned his adherents, including young James Doug- 
las, received the support of the Bishops of St. Andrews 
and Glasgow, hurried to Scone, and there was hastily 
crowned with a slight coronet, in the presence of but 
two earls and three bishops. 

Edward made vast warlike preparations and for- 
swore leniency, while Bruce, under papal excommuni- 
cation, which he slighted, collected a few nobles, such 
as Lennox, Atholl, Errol, and a brother of the chief 
of the Frazers. Other chiefs, kinsmen of the slain 
Comyn, among them Macdowal of Argyll, banded 
to avenge the victim; Bruce's little force was defeated 
at Methven Wood, near Perth, by Aymer de Valence, 
and prisoners of all ranks were hanged as traitors, 
while two bishops were placed in irons. Bruce took 
to the heather, pursued by the Macdowals no less 
than by the English; his queen was captured, his 
brother Nigel was executed; he cut his way to the 
wild west coast, aided only by Sir Nial Campbell of 
Loch Awe, who thus founded the fortune of his house, 
and by the Macdonalds, under Angus Og of Islay. He 



RISE OF BRUCE 45 

wintered in the isle of Rathlin (some think he even 
went to Norway), and in spring, after surprising the 
English garrison in his own castle of Turnberry, he 
roamed, now lonely, now with a mobile little force, in 
Galloway, always evading and sometimes defeating his 
English pursuers. At Loch Trool and at Loudon Hill 
(Drumclog) he dealt them heavy blows, while on June 
7, 1307, his great enemy Edward died at Borough-on- 
Sands, leaving the crown and the war to the weakling 
Edward II. 

Fortune had turned. We cannot follow Bruce 
through his campaign in the north, where he ruined the 
country of the Comyns (1308), and through the vic- 
tories in Galloway of his hard-fighting brother Edward. 
With enemies on every side, Bruce took them in detail ; 
early in March 1309 he routed the Macdowals at the 
west end of the Pass of Brander. Edward II. was in- 
volved in disputes with his own barons, and Bruce was 
recognised by his country's Church in 1310 and aided 
by his great lieutenants, Sir James Douglas and 
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Murray. By August 1311 
Bruce was carrying the war into England, sacking 
Durham and Chester, failing at Carlisle, but in January 
1313 capturing Perth. In summer, Edward Bruce, in 
the spirit of chivalry, gave to Stirling Castle (Ran- 
dolph had taken Edinburgh Castle) a set day, Mid- 
summer Day 1314, to be relieved or to surrender; and 
Bruce kept tryst with Edward II. and his English and 
Irish levies, and all his adventurous chivalry from 
France, Hainault, Bretagne, Gascony, and Aquitaine. 
All the world knows the story of the first battle, the 



46 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Scottish Quatre Bras ; the success of Randolph on the 
right; the slaying of Bohun when Bruce broke his 
battle-axe. Next day Bruce's position was strong ; be- 
neath the towers of Stirling the Bannockburn protected 
his front ; morasses only to be crossed by narrow paths 
impeded the English advance. Edward Bruce com- 
manded the right wing; Randolph the centre; Douglas 
and the Steward the left ; Bruce the reserve, the Isles- 
men. His strength lay in his spearmen's " dark im- 
penetrable wood " ; his archers were ill-trained ; of 
horse he had but a handful under Keith, the Marischal. 
But the heavy English cavalry could not break the 
squares of spears ; Keith cut up the archers of England ; 
the main body could not deploy, and the slow, relent- 
less advance of the whole Scottish line covered the plain 
with the dying and the flying. A panic arose, caused 
by the sight of an approaching cloud of camp- 
followers on the Gillie's hill ; Edward fled, and hun- 
dreds of noble prisoners, with all the waggons and sup- 
plies of England, fell into the hands of the Scots. In 
eight strenuous years the generalship of Bruce and his 
war-leaders, the resolution of the people, hardened by 
the cruelties of Edward, the sermons of the clergy, 
and the utter incompetence of Edward II., had re- 
deemed a desperate chance. From a fief of England, 
Scotland had become an indomitable nation. 

LATER DAYS OF BRUCE 

Bruce continued to prosper, despite an ill-advised 
attempt to win Ireland, in which Edward Bruce fell 



DEATH OF BRUCE 47 

(1318). This left the succession, if Bruce had no male 
issue, to the children of his daughter, Marjorie, and 
her husband, the Steward. In 1318 Scotland recovered 
Berwick, in 1319 routed the English at Mytton-on- 
Swale. In a Parliament at Aberbrothock (April 6, 
1320) the Scots announced to the Pope, who had been 
interfering, that, while a hundred of them survive, 
they will never yield to England. In October 1322 
Bruce utterly routed the English at Byland Abbey, 
in the heart of Yorkshire, and chased Edward II. into 
York. In March 1324 a son was born to Bruce named 
David; on May 4, 1328, by the Treaty of Northamp- 
ton, the independence of Scotland was recognised. In 
July the infant David married Joanna, daughter of 
Edward II. 

On June 7, 1329, Bruce died and was buried at 
Dunfermline; his heart, by his order, was carried by 
Douglas towards the Holy Land, and when Douglas 
fell in a battle with the Moors in Spain, the heart 
was brought back by Sir Simon Lockhart of the Lee. 

The later career of Bruce, after he had been excom- 
municated, is that of the foremost knight and most 
sagacious man of action who ever wore the crown of 
Scotland. The staunchness with which the clergy and 
Estates disregarded papal fulminations (indeed under 
William the Lion they had treated an interdict as 
waste-paper) indicated a kind of protestant tendency 
to independence of the Holy See. 

Bruce's inclusion of representatives of the burghs in 
the first regular Scottish Parliament (at Cambusken- 
neth in 1326) was a great step forward in the 



48 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

constitutional existence of the country. The king, in 
Scotland, was expected to " live of his own," but in 
1326 the expenses of the war with England compelled 
Bruce to seek permission for taxation. 



CHAPTER IX 

DECADENCE AND DISASTERS REIGN OF DAVID II 

The heroic generation of Scotland was passing off the 
stage. The king was a child. The forfeiture by Bruce 
of the lands of hostile or treacherous lords, and his 
bestowal of the estates on his partisans, had made the 
disinherited nobles the enemies of Scotland, and had 
fed too full the House of Douglas. As the star of 
Scotland was thus clouded — she had no strong man for 
a king during the next ninety years — the sun of Eng- 
land rose red and glorious under a warrior like Edward 
III. The Scottish nobles in many cases ceased to be 
true to their proud boast that they would never sub- 
mit to England. A very brief summary of the wretched 
reign of David II. must here suffice. 

First, the son of John Balliol, Edward, went to the 
English Court, and thither thronged the disinherited 
and forfeited lords, arranging a raid to recover their 
lands. Edward III., of course, connived at their 
preparations. 

After Randolph's death (July 20, 1332), when Mar 
— a sister's son of Bruce— was Regent, the disinherited 
lords, under Balliol, invaded Scotland, and Mar, with 
young Randolph, Menteith, and a bastard of Bruce, 
" Robert of Carrick," leading a very great host, fell 
under the shafts of the English archers of Umfra- 

49 



50 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ville, Wake, the English Earl of Atholl, Talbot, Fer- 
rers, and Zouche, at Dupplin, on the Earn (August 
12, 1332). Rolled up by arrows loosed on the flanks 
of their charging columns, they fell, and their dead 
bodies lay in heaps as tall as a lance. 

On September 24 Edward Balliol was crowned king 
at Scone. Later, Andrew Murray, perhaps a son of 
the Murray who had been Wallace's companion-in-arms, 
was taken, and Balliol acknowledged Edward III. as 
his liege-lord at Roxburgh. In December the second 
son of Randolph, with Archibald, the new Regent, 
brother of the great Black Douglas, drove Balliol, fly- 
ing in his shirt, from Annan across the Border. He 
returned, and was opposed by this Archibald Douglas, 
called Tineman, the Unlucky, and on July 19, 1333, 
Tineman suffered, at Halidon Hill, near Berwick, a 
defeat as terrible as Flodden; Berwick, too, was lost, 
practically for ever, Tineman fell, and Sir William 
Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, was a prisoner. 
These Scots defeats were always due to rash frontal 
attacks on strong positions, the assailants passing be- 
tween lines of English bowmen who loosed into their 
flanks. The boy king, David, was carried to France 
(1334) for safety, while Balliol delivered to Edward 
Berwick and the chief southern counties, including that 
of Edinburgh, with their castles. 

There followed internal wars between Balliol's parti- 
sans, while the patriots were led by young Randolph, by 
the young Steward, by Sir Andrew Murray, and the 
wavering and cruel Douglas, called the Knight of 



CAPTURE OF DAVID II. (1346) 51 

Liddesdale, now returned from captivity. In the 
desperate state of things, with Balliol and Edward 
ravaging Scotland at will, none showed more resolution 
than Bruce's sister, who held Kildrummie Castle; and 
Randolph's daughter, " Black Agnes," who commanded 
that of Dunbar. By vast gifts Balliol won over John, 
Lord of the Isles. The Celts turned to the English 
party; Edward III. harried the province of Moray, 
but, in 1337, he began to undo his successes by for- 
mally claiming the crown of France : France and Scot- 
land together could always throw off the English 
yoke. 

Thus diverted from Scotland, Edward lost strength 
there while he warred with Scotland's ally : in 1341 the 
Douglas, Knight of Liddesdale, recovered Edinburgh 
Castle by a romantic surprise. But David returned 
home in 1341, a boy of eighteen, full of the foibles of 
chivalry, rash, sensual, extravagant, who at once gave 
deadly offence to the Knight of Liddesdale by prefer- 
ring to him, as sheriff of Teviotdale, the brave Sir 
Alexander Ramsay, who had driven the English from 
the siege of Dunbar Castle. Douglas threw Ramsay 
into Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale and starved him 
to death. 

In 1343 the Knight began to intrigue traitorously 
with Edward III. ; after a truce, David led his whole 
force into England, where his rash chivalry caused his 
utter defeat at Neville's Cross, near Durham (October 
17, 1346). He was taken, as was the Bishop of St. 
Andrews; his ransom became the central question be- 



52 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

tween England and Scotland. In 1353 Douglas, Knight 
of Liddesdale, was slain at Williamshope on Yarrow 
by his godson, William, Lord Douglas: the fact is 
commemorated in a fragment of perhaps our oldest 
narrative Border ballad. French men-at-arms now 
helped the Scots to recover Berwick, merely to lose 
it again in 1356; in 1357 David was set free: his ran- 
som, 100,000 merks, was to be paid by instalment. The 
country was heavily taxed, but the full sum was never 
paid. Meanwhile the Steward had been Regent; be- 
tween him, the heir of the Crown failing issue to David, 
and the king jealousies arose. David was suspected 
of betraying the kingdom to England ; in October 1363 
he and the Earl of Douglas visited London and made 
a treaty adopting a son of Edward as king on David's 
demise, and on his ransom being remitted, but in March 
1364 his Estates rejected the proposal, to which Doug- 
las had assented. Till 1369 all was poverty and 
internal disunion; the feud, to be so often renewed, of 
the Douglas and the Steward raged. David was made 
contemptible by a second marriage with Margaret 
Logie, but the war with France drove Edward III. to 
accept a fourteen years' truce with Scotland. On 
February 22, 1371, David died in Edinburgh Castle, 
being succeeded, without opposition, by the Steward, 
Robert II., son of Walter, and of Marjorie, daughter 
of Robert Bruce. This Robert II., somewhat outworn 
by many years of honourable war in his country's cause, 
and the father of a family, by Elizabeth Mure of 
Rowallan, which could hardly be rendered legitimate by 
any number of papal dispensations, was the -first of the 



PARLIAMENT 53 

royal Stewart line. In him a cadet branch of the 
English FitzAlans, themselves of a very ancient Breton 
stock, blossomed into royalty. 



PARLIAMENT AND THE CROWN 

With the coming of a dynasty which endured for 
three centuries, we must sketch the relations, in Scot- 
land, of Crown and Parliament till the days of the 
Covenant and the Revolution of 1688. Scotland had 
but little of the constitutional evolution so conspicuous 
in the history of England. The reason is that while 
the English kings, with their fiefs and wars in France, 
had constantly to be asking their parliaments for 
money, and while Parliament first exacted the redress 
of grievances, in Scotland the king was expected " to 
live of his own " on the revenue of crown-lands, rents, 
feudal aids, fines exacted in courts of law, and duties 
on merchandise. No " tenths " or " fifteenths " were 
exacted from clergy and people. There could be no 
" constitutional resistance " when the Crown made no 
unconstitutional demands. 

In Scotland the germ of Parliament is the king's 
court of vassals of the Crown. To the assemblies, held 
now in one place, now in another, would usually come 
the vassals of the district, with such officers of state as 
the Chancellor, the Chamberlain, the Steward, the Con- 
stable or Commander-in-Chief, the Justiciar, and the 
Marischal, and such Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, 
Barons, and tenants-in-chief as chose to attend. At 



54 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

these meetings public business was done, charters were 
granted, and statutes were passed; assent was made 
to such feudal aids as money for the king's ransom in 
the case of William the Lion. In 1295 the seals of six 
royal burghs are appended to the record of a negotia- 
tion; in 1326 burgesses, as we saw, were consulted by 
Bruce on questions of finance. 

The misfortunes and extravagance of David II. had 
to be paid for, and Parliament interfered with the 
royal prerogative in coinage and currency, directed 
the administration of justice, dictated terms of peace 
with England, called to account even hereditary officers 
of the Crown (such as the Steward, Constable, and 
Marischal), controlled the king's expenditure (or tried 
to do so), and denounced the execution of royal war- 
rants against the Statutes and common form of law. 
They summarily rejected David's attempt to alter the 
succession of the Crown. 

At the same time, as attendance of multitudes during 
protracted Parliaments was irksome and expensive, 
arose the habit of intrusting business to a mere " Com- 
mittee of Articles," later " The Lords of the Articles," 
selected in varying ways from the Three Estates — Spir- 
itual, Noble, and Commons. These Committees saved 
the members of Parliament from the trouble and ex- 
pense of attendance, but obviously tended to become 
an abuse, being selected and packed to carry out the 
designs of the Crown or of the party of nobles in 
power. All members, of whatever Estate, sat together 
in the same chamber. There were no elected Knights 
of the Shires, no representative system. 



SCOTTISH AUTHORS 55 

The reign of David II. saw two Scottish authors or 
three, whose works are extant. Barbour wrote the 
chivalrous rhymed epic-chronicle ' The Brus ' ; Wyn- 
toun, an unpoetic rhymed " cronykil " ; and " Hucheoun 
of the Awle Ryal " produced works of more genius, if 
all that he is credited with be his own. 



CHAPTER X 

EARLY STEWART KINGS: ROBERT II. (1371-1390) 

Robert II. was crowned at Scone on March 26, 1371. 
He was elderly, jovial, pacific, and had little to fear 
from England when the deaths of Edward III. and the 
Black Prince left the crown to the infant Richard II. 
There was fighting against isolated English castles 
within the Scottish border, to amuse the warlike Doug- 
lases and Percys, and there were truces, irregular and 
ill kept. In 1384 great English and Scottish raids 
were made, and gentlemen of France, who came over 
for sport, were scurvily entertained, and (1385) saw 
more plundering than honest fighting under James, Earl 
of Douglas, who merely showed them an army that, 
under Richard II., burned Melrose Abbey and fired 
Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee. Edinburgh was a town 
of 400 houses. Richard insisted that not more than a 
third of his huge force should be English Borderers, 
who had no idea of hitting their Scottish neighbours, 
fathers-in-law and brothers-in-law, too hard. The one 
famous fight, that of Otterburn (August 15, 1388), 
was a great and joyous passage of arms by moonlight. 
The Douglas fell, the Percy was led captive away ; the 
survivors gained advancement in renown and the hearty 
applause of the chivalrous chronicler, Froissart. The 
oldest ballads extant on this affair were current in 1550, 

56 



DEATH OF ROBERT II 57 

and show traces of the reading of Froissart and the 
English chroniclers. 

In 1390 died Robert II. Only his youth was glorious. 
The reign of his son, Robert III. (crowned August 14, 
1390), was that of a weakling who let power fall into 
the hands of his brother, the Duke of Albany, or his 
son David, Duke of Rothesay, who held the reins after 
the Parliament (a Parliament that bitterly blamed the 
Government) of January 1399. (With these two 
princes the title of Duke first appears in Scotland. ) 
The follies of young David alienated all: he broke his 
betrothal to the daughter of the Earl of March; March 
retired to England, becoming the man of Henry IV. ; 
and though Rothesay wedded the daughter of the Earl 
of Douglas, he was arrested by Albany and Douglas 
and was starved to death (or died of dysentery) in 
Falkland Castle (1402). The Highlanders had been 
in anarchy throughout the reign; their blood was let 
in the great clan duel of thirty against thirty, on the 
Inch of Perth, in 1396. Probably clans Cameron arid 
Chattan were the combatants. 

On Rothesay's death Albany was Governor, while 
Douglas was taken prisoner in the great Border defeat 
of Homildon Hill, not far from Flodden. But then 
(1403) came the alliance of Douglas with Percy; 
Percy's quarrel with Henry IV. and their defeat; and 
Hotspur's death, Douglas's capture at Shrewsbury. 
Between Shakespeare, in " Henry IV.," and Scott, in 
J The Fair Maid of Perth,' the most notable events in 
the reign of Robert III. are immortalised. The king's 
last misfortune was the capture by the English at sea, 



58 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

on the way to France, of his son James in February- 
March 1406. 1 On April 4, 1406, Robert went to his 
rest, one of the most unhappy of the fated princes of 
his line. 



THE REGENCY OF ALBANY 

The Regency of Albany, uncle of the captured James, 
lasted for fourteen years, ending with his death in 1420. 
He occasionally negotiated for his king's release, but 
more successfully for that of his son Murdoch. That 
James suspected Albany's ambition, and was irritated 
by his conduct, appears in his letters, written in Scots, 
to Albany and to Douglas, released in 1408, and now 
free in Scotland. The letters are of 1416. 

The most important points to note during James's 
English captivity are the lawlessness and oppression 
which prevailed in Scotland, and the beginning of 
Lollard heresies, nascent Protestantism, nascent Social- 
ism, even " free love." The Parliament of 1399, which 
had inveighed against the laxity of government under 
Robert II., also demanded the extirpation of heresies, 
in accordance with the Coronation Oath. One Resby, 
a heretical English priest, was arraigned and burned 
at Perth in 1407, under Laurence of Lindores, the Do- 
minican Inquisitor into heresies, who himself was active 
in promoting Scotland's oldest university, St. Andrews. 
The foundation was by Henry Wardlaw, Bishop of St. 
Andrews, by virtue of a bull from the anti-pope Bene- 

1 The precise date is disputed. 



ALBANY'S DEATH 59 

diet XIII., of February 1414. Lollard ideas were not 
suppressed; the chronicler, Bower, speaks of their ex- 
istence in 1445; they sprang from envy of the wealth, 
and indignation against the corruptions of the clergy, 
and the embers of Lollardism in Kyle were not cold 
when, under James V., the flame of the Reformation was 
rekindled. 

The Celtic North, never quiet, made its last united 
effort in 1411, when Donald, Lord of the Isles, who was 
in touch with the English Government, claimed the 
earldom of Ross, in right of his wife, as against the 
Earl of Buchan, a son of Albany; mustered all the 
wild clans of the west and the Isles at Ardtornish Castle 
on the Sound of Mull ; marched through Ross to Ding- 
wall; defeated the great northern clan of Mackay, and 
was hurrying to sack Aberdeen when he was met by 
Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, the gentry of the 
northern Lowlands, mounted knights, and the burgesses 
of the towns, some eighteen miles from Aberdeen, at 
Harlaw. There was a pitched battle with great slaugh- 
ter, but the Celts had no cavalry, and the end was that 
Donald withdrew to his fastnesses. The event is com- 
memorated by an old literary ballad, and in Elspeth's 
ballad in Scott's novel, ' The Antiquary.' 

In the year of Albany's death, at a great age (1420), 
in compliance with the prayer of Charles VII. of France, 
the Earl of Buchan, Archibald, Douglas's eldest son, 
and Sir John Stewart of Derneley, led a force of some 
7000 to 10,000 men to war for France. Henry V. then 
compelled the captive James I. to join him, and (1421) 
at Bauge Bridge the Scots, with the famed La Hire, 



60 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

routed the army of Henry's brother, the Duke of 
Clarence, who, with 2000 of the English, fell in the 
action. The victory was fruitless; at Crevant (1423) 
the Scots were defeated; at Verneuil (1424) they were 
almost exterminated. None the less the remnant, with 
fresh levies, continued to war for their old ally, and, 
under Sir Hugh Kennedy and others, suffered at 
Rouvray (February 1429), and were with the victori- 
ous French at Orleans (May 1429) under the leader- 
ship of Jeanne d'Arc. The combination of Scots and 
French, at the last push, always saved the independence 
of both kingdoms. 

The character of Albany, who, under his father, 
Robert III., and during the captivity of James I., ruled 
Scotland so long, is enigmatic. He is well spoken of 
by the contemporary Wyntoun, author of a chronicle 
in rhyme ; and in the Latin of Wyntoun's continuator, 
Bower. He kept on friendly terms with the Douglases, 
he was popular in so far as he was averse to imposing 
taxation; and perhaps the anarchy and oppression 
which preceded the return of James I. to Scotland were 
due not to the weakness of Albany but to that of his 
son and successor, Murdoch, and to the iniquities of 
Murdoch's sons. 

The death of Henry V. (1422) and the ambition of 
Cardinal Beaufort, determined to wed his niece Jane 
Beaufort to a crowned king, may have been among the 
motives which led the English Government (their own 
king, Henry VI., being a child) to set free the royal 
captive (1424). 



CHAPTER XI 

JAMES I 

On March 28, 1424, James I. was released, on a ran- 
som of £40,000, and after his marriage with Jane 
Beaufort, granddaughter of John of Gaunt, son of 
Edward III. The story of their wooing (of course in 
the allegorical manner of the age, and with poetical 
conventions in place of actual details) is told in James's 
poem, " The King's Quair," a beautiful composition in 
the school of Chaucer, of which literary scepticism has 
vainly tried to rob the royal author. James was the 
ablest and not the most scrupulous of the Stuarts. His 
captivity had given him an English education, a belief 
in order and in English parliamentary methods, and 
a fiery determination to put down the oppression of the 
nobles. " If God gives me but a dog's life," he said, " I 
will make the key keep the castle and the bracken bush 
keep the cow." Before his first Parliament, in May 
1424, James arrested Murdoch's eldest son, Sir Walter 
Fleming of Cumbernauld, and the younger Boyd of 
Kilmarnock. The Parliament left a Committee of the 
Estates (" The Lords of the Articles ") to carry out 
the royal policy. Taxes for the payment of James's 
ransom were imposed ; to impose them was easy, " pas- 
sive resistance " was easier ; the money was never paid, 
and James's noble hostages languished in England. He 
next arrested the old Earl of Lennox, and Sir Robert 

61 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Graham of the Kincardine family, later his mur- 
derer. 

These were causes of unpopularity. During a new 
Parliament (1425) James imprisoned the new Duke of 
Albany (Murdoch) and his son Alexander, and seized 
their castles. 1 The Albanys and Lennox were executed ; 
their estates were forfeited; but resentment dogged a 
king who was too fierce and too hurried a reformer, 
perhaps too cruel an avenger of his own wrongs. 

Our knowledge of the events of his reign is vague; 
but a king of Scotland could never, with safety, treat 
any of his nobles as criminals ; the whole order was 
concerned to prevent or avenge severity of justice. 

At a Parliament in Inverness (1427) he seized the 
greatest of the Highland magnates whom he had sum- 
moned; they were hanged or imprisoned, and, after 
resistance, Alastair, the new Lord of the Isles, did 
penance at Holyrood, before being immured in Tantal- 
lon Castle. His cousin, Donald Balloch, defeated Mar 
at Inverlochy (where Montrose later routed Argyll) 
(1431). Not long afterwards Donald fled to Ireland, 
whence a head, said to be his, was sent to James, but 
Donald lived to fight another day. 

Without a standing army to garrison the inaccessible 
Highlands, the Crown could neither preserve peace in 
those regions nor promote justice. The system of vio- 
lent and perfidious punishments merely threw the Celts 
into the arms of England. 



1 By a blunder which Sir James Ramsay corrected, history has 
accused James of arresting his " whole House of Lords " ! 



JAMES AND THE NOBLES 63 

Execution itself was less terrible to the nobles than 
the forfeiting of their lands and the disinheriting of 
their families. None the less, James (1425-1427) seized 
the lands of the late Earl of Lennox, made Malise 
Graham surrender the earldom of Strathearn in ex- 
change for the barren title of Earl of Menteith, and 
sent the sufferer as a hostage into England. The Earl 
of March, son of the earl who, under Robert III., had 
gone over to the English cause, was imprisoned and 
stripped of his ancient domains on the eastern Border; 
and James, disinheriting Lord Erskine, annexed the 
earldom of Mar to the Crown. 

In a Parliament at Perth (March 1428) James per- 
mitted the minor barons and freeholders to abstain from 
these costly assemblies on the condition of sending two 
" wise men " to represent each sheriffdom : a Speaker 
was to be elected, and the shires were to pay the ex- 
penses of the wise men. But the measure was unpopu- 
lar, and in practice lapsed. Excellent laws were passed, 
but were not enforced. 

In July-November 1428 a marriage was arranged be- 
tween Margaret the infant daughter of James and the 
son (later Louis XL) of the still uncrowned Dauphin, 
Charles VIII. of France. Charles announced to his 
subjects early in 1429 that an army of 6000 Scots 
was to land in France; that James himself, if neces- 
sary, would follow; but Jeanne d'Arc declared that 
there was no help from Scotland, none save from God 
and herself. She was right : no sooner had she won her 
victories at Orleans, Jargeau, Pathay, and elsewhere 
(May- June 1429) than James made a truce with Eng- 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

land which enabled Cardinal Beaufort to throw his 
large force of anti-Hussite crusaders into France, 
where they secured Normandy. The Scots in France, 
nevertheless, fought under the Maid in her last success- 
ful action, at Lagny (April 1430). 

An heir to the Crown, James, was born in October 
1430, while the king was at strife with the Pope, and 
asserting for king and Parliament power over the Pro- 
vincial Councils of the Church. An interdict was 
threatened; James menaced the rich and lax religious 
orders with secular reformation ; settled the Carthusians 
at Perth, to show an example of holy living; and pur- 
sued his severities against many of his nobles. 

His treatment of the Earl of Strathearn (despoiled 
and sent as a hostage to England) aroused the wrath 
of the earl's uncle, Robert Graham, who bearded James 
in Parliament, was confiscated, fled across the Highland 
line, and, on February 20, 1437, aided, it is said by the 
old Earl of Atholl (a grandson of Robert II. by his 
second marriage), led a force against the king in the 
monastery of the Black Friars at Perth, surprised him, 
and butchered him. The energy of his queen brought 
the murderers, and Atholl himself, to die under un- 
speakable torments. 

James's reforms were hurried, violent, and, as a rule, 
incapable of surviving the anarchy of his son's minority : 
his new Court of Session, sitting in judgment thrice 
a-year, was his most fortunate innovation. 



CHAPTER XII 

JAMES n 

Scone, with its sacred stone, being so near Perth and 
the Highlands, was perilous, and the coronation of 
James II. was therefore held at Holyrood (March 25, 
1437). The child, who was but seven years of age, 
was bandied to and fro like a shuttlecock between 
rival adventurers. The Earl of Douglas (Archibald, 
fifth earl, died 1439) took no leading part in the strife 
of factions : one of them led by Sir William Crichton, 
who held the important post of Commander of Edin- 
burgh Castle; the other by Sir Alexander Livingstone 
of Callendar. 

The great old Houses had been shaken by the se- 
verities of James I., at least for the time. In a Gov- 
ernment of factions influenced by private greed, there 
was no important difference in policy, and we need 
not follow the transference of the royal person from 
Crichton in Edinburgh to Livingstone in Stirling Castle ; 
the coalitions between these worthies, the battles be- 
tween the Boyds of Kilmarnock and the Stewarts, who 
had to avenge Stewart of Derneley, Constable of the 
Scottish contingent in France, who was slain by Sir 
Thomas Boyd. The queen-mother married Sir James 
Stewart, the Black Knight of Lome, and (August 3, 
1439) she was captured by Livingstone, while her hus- 
band, in the mysterious words of the chronicler, was 

65 



66 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

" put in a pitt and bollit." In a month Jane Beaufort 
gave Livingstone an amnesty ; he, not the Stewart fam- 
ily, not the queen-mother, now held James. 

To all this the new young Earl of Douglas, a boy 
of eighteen, tacitly assented. He was the most power- 
ful and wealthiest subject in Scotland; in France he 
was Due de Touraine; he was descended in lawful 
wedlock from Robert II. ; " he micht ha'e been the 
king," as the ballad says of the bonny Earl of Moray. 
But he held proudly aloof from both Livingstone and 
Crichton, who were stealing the king alternately: they 
then combined, invited Douglas to Edinburgh Castle, 
with his brother David, and served up the ominous 
bull's head at that " black dinner " recorded in a ballad 
fragment. 1 They decapitated the two Douglas boys ; 
the earldom fell to their granduncle, James the Fat, 
and presently, on his death (1443), to young William 
Douglas, after which " bands," or illegal covenants, be- 
tween the various leaders of factions, led to private 
wars of shifting fortune. Kennedy, Bishop of St. An- 
drews, opposed the Douglas party, now strong in 
lands newly acquired, till (July 3, 1449) James married 
Mary of Gueldres, imprisoned the Livingstones, and 
relied on the Bishop of St. Andrews and the clergy. 
While Douglas was visiting Rome in 1450, the Liv- 
ingstones had been forfeited, and Crichton became 
Chancellor. 

1 The ballad fragments on the Knight of Liddesdale's slaying, 
and on "the black dinner," are preserved in Hume of Gods- 
croft's ' History of the House of Douglas,' written early in the 
seventeenth century. 



FALL OF THE DOUGLASES 67 



FALL OF THE BLACK DOUGLASES 

The Douglases, through a royal marriage of an 
ancestor to a daughter of the more legitimate marriage 
of Robert II., had a kind of claim to the throne which 
they never put forward. The country was thus spared 
dynastic wars, like those of the White and Red Roses 
in England ; but, none the less, the Douglases were too 
rich and powerful for subjects. 

The earl at the moment held Galloway and Annan- 
dale, two of his brothers were Earls of Moray and 
Ormond; in October 1448, Ormond had distinguished 
himself by defeating and taking Percy, urging a raid 
into Scotland, at a bloody battle on the Water of Sark, 
near Gretna. 

During the Earl of Douglas's absence in Rome, James 
had put down some of his unruly retainers, and even 
after his return (1451) had persevered in this course. 
Later in the year Douglas resigned, and received back 
his lands, a not uncommon formula showing submission 
on the vassal's favour on the lord's part, as when 
Charles VII., at the request of Jeanne d'Arc, made this 
resignation to God! 

Douglas, however, was suspected of intriguing with 
England and with the Lord of the Isles, while he had a 
secret covenant or " band " with the Earls of Crawford 
and Ross. If all this were true, he was planning a most 
dangerous enterprise. 

He was invited to Stirling to meet the king under a 
safe-conduct, and there (February 22, 1452) was 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

dirked by his king at the sacred table of hospi- 
tality. 

Whether this crime was premeditated or merely pas- 
sionate is unknown, as in the case of Bruce's murder of 
the Red Comyn before the high altar. Parliament ab- 
solved James on slender grounds. James, the brother 
of the slain earl, publicly defied his king, gave his 
allegiance to Henry VI. of England, withdrew it, in- 
trigued, and, after his brothers had been routed at 
Arkinholm, near Langholm (May 18, 1455), fled to 
England. His House was proclaimed traitorous ; their 
wide lands in southern and south-western Scotland were 
forfeited and redistributed, the Scotts of Buccleuch 
profiting largely in the long-run. The leader of the 
royal forces at Arkinholm, near Langholm, was an- 
other Douglas, one of " the Red Douglases," the Earl 
of Angus ; and till the execution of the Earl of Morton, 
under James VI., the Red Douglases were as powerful, 
turbulent, and treacherous as the Black Douglases had 
been in their day. When attacked and defeated, these 
Douglases, red or black, always allied themselves with 
England and with the Lords of the Isles, the hereditary 
foes of the royal authority. 

Meanwhile Edward IV. wrote of the Scots as " his 
rebels of Scotland," and in the alternations of fortune 
between the Houses of York and Lancaster, James held 
with Henry VI. When Henry was defeated and taken 
at Northampton (July 10, 1460), James besieged Rox- 
burgh Castle, an English hold on the Border, and 



DEATH OF JAMES II. (1460) 69 

(August 3, 1460) was slain by the explosion of a great 
bombard. 

James was but thirty years of age at his death. By 
the dagger, by the law, and by the aid of the Red 
Douglases, he had ruined his most powerful nobles — 
and his own reputation. His early training, like that 
of James VI., was received while he was in the hands 
of the most treacherous, bloody, and unscrupulous of 
mankind; later, he met them with their own weapons. 
The foundation of the University of Glasgow (1451), 
and the building and endowment of St. Salvator's Col- 
lege in St. Andrews, by Bishop Kennedy, are the most 
permanent proofs of advancing culture in the reign of 
James. 

Many laws of excellent tendency, including sumptu- 
ary laws, which suggest the existence of unexpected 
wealth and luxury, were passed; but such laws were 
never firmly and regularly enforced. By one rule, which 
does seem to have been carried out, no poisons were to 
be imported: Scottish chemical science was incapable of 
manufacturing them. Much later, under James VI., 
we find a parcel of arsenic, to be used for political 
purposes, successfully stopped at Leith. 



CHAPTER XIII 



JAMES in 



James II. left three sons ; the eldest, James III., aged 
nine, was crowned at Kelso (August 10, 1460); his 
brothers, bearing the titles of Albany and Mar, were 
not to be his supports. His mother, Mary of Gueldres, 
had the charge of the boys, and, as she was won over by 
her uncle, Philip of Burgundy, to the cause of the House 
of York, while Kennedy and the Earl of Angus stood 
for the House of Lancaster, there was strife between 
them and the queen-mother and nobles. Kennedy 
relied on France (Louis XL), and his opponents on 
England. 

The battle of Towton (March 30, 1461) drove 
Henry VI. and his queen across the Border, where 
Kennedy entertained the melancholy exile in the Castle 
of St. Andrews. The grateful Henry restored Berwick 
to the Scots, who could not hold it long. In June 1461, 
while the Scots were failing to take Carlisle, Edward IV. 
was crowned, and sent his adherent, the exiled Earl of 
Douglas, to treat for an alliance with the Celts, under 
John, Lord of the Isles, and that Donald Balloch who 
was falsely believed to have long before been slain in 
Ireland. 

It is curious to think of the Lord of the Isles dealing 
as an independent prince, through a renegade Douglas, 
with the English king. A treaty was made at John's 

70 



DEFEAT OF DOUGLAS VI 

Castle of Ardtornish — now a shell of crumbling stone 
on the sea-shore of the Morvern side of the Sound of 
Mull — with the English monarch at Westminster. The 
Highland chiefs promise allegiance to Edward, and, if 
successful, the Celts are to recover the ancient kingdom 
from Caithness to the Forth, while Douglas is to be 
all-powerful from the Forth to the Border 1 

But other intrigues prevailed. The queen-mother and 
her son, in the most friendly manner, met the king- 
maker Warwick at Dumfries, and again at Carlisle ; and 
Douglas was disgraced by Edward, though restored to 
favour when Bishop Kennedy declined to treat with 
Edward's commissioners. The Treaty of England with 
Douglas and the Celts was then ratified; but Douglas, 
advancing in front of Edward's army to the Border, 
met old Bishop Kennedy in helmet and corslet, and was 
defeated. Louis XL, however, now deserted the Red 
for the White Rose. Kennedy followed his example; 
and peace was made between England and Scotland 
in October 1464. Kennedy died in the summer of 
1465. 

There followed the usual struggles between confedera- 
tions of the nobles, and, in July 1466, James was seized, 
being then aged fourteen, by the party of the Boyds, 
Flemings, and Kennedys, aided by Hepburn of Hailes 
(ancestor of the turbulent Earl of Bothwell), and by 
the head of the Border House of Cessford, Andrew 
Ker. 

It was a repetition of the struggles of Livingstone 
and Crichton, and now the great Border lairds begin to 
take their place in history. Boyd made himself gov- 



72 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ernor to the king, his son married the king's eldest 
sister, Mary, and became Earl of Arran. But brief 
was the triumph of the Boyds. In 1469 James married 
Margaret of Norway; Orkney and Shetland were her 
dower ; but while Arran negotiated the affair abroad, at 
home the fall of his House was arranged. Boyd fled the 
country ; the king's sister, divorced from young Arran, 
married the Lord Hamilton; and his family, who were 
Lords of Cadzow under Robert Bruce, and had been 
allies of the Black Douglases till their fall, became the 
nearest heirs of the royal Stewarts, if that family were 
extinct. The Hamiltons, the wealthiest house in Scot- 
land, never produced a man of great ability, but their 
nearness to the throne and their ambition were storm- 
centres in the time of Mary Stuart and James VI., 
and even as late as the Union in 1707. 

The fortunes of a nephew of Bishop Kennedy, Patrick 
Graham, Kennedy's successor as Bishop of St. Andrews, 
now perplex the historian. Graham dealt for himself 
with the Pope, obtained the rank of Archbishop for the 
Bishop of St. Andrews (1472), and thus offended the 
king and country, always jealous of interference from 
Rome. But he was reported on as more or less insane 
by a papal nuncio, and was deposed. Had he been 
defending (as used to be said) the right of election of 
Bishop for the Canons against the greed of the nobles, 
the nuncio might not have taken an unfavourable view 
of his intellect. In any case, whether the clergy, backed 
by Rome, elected their bishops, or whether the king and 
nobles made their profit out of the Church appoint- 
ments, jobbery was the universal rule. Ecclesiastical 



CHARACTER OF JAMES 73 

corruption and, as a rule, ignorance, were attaining 
their lowest level. 1 By 1476 the Lord of the Isles, the 
Celtic ally of Edward IV., was reduced by Argyll, 
Huntly, and Crawford, and lost the sheriffdom of In- 
verness, and the earldom of Ross, which was attached 
to the Crown (1476). His treaty of Ardtornish had 
come to light. But his bastard, Angus Og, filled the 
north and west with fire and tumult from Ross to 
Tobermory (1480-1490), while James's devotion to the 
arts — a thing intolerable — and to the society of low- 
born favourites, especially Thomas Cockburn, " a 
stone-cutter," prepared the sorrows and the end of his 
reign. 

The intrigues which follow, and the truth about the 
character of James, are exceedingly obscure. We have 
no Scottish chronicle written at the time; the later 
histories, by Ferrerius, an Italian, and, much later, by 
Queen Mary's Bishop Lesley, and by George Buchanan, 
are full of rumours and contradictions, while the State 
Papers and Treaties of England merely prove the ex- 
treme treachery of James's brother Albany, and no 
evidence tells us how James contrived to get the better 
of the traitor. James's brothers Albany and Mar were 
popular ; were good horsemen, men of their hands, and 
Cochrane is accused of persuading James to arrest Mar 
on a charge of treason and black magic. Many witches 
are said to have been burned: perhaps the only such 
case before the Reformation. However it fell out — all 
is obscure — Mar died in prison; while Albany, also 

1 The works of Messrs. Herkless and Hannay on the Bishops of 
St. Andrews may be consulted. 



74 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

a prisoner on charges of treasonable intrigues with 
the inveterate Earl of Douglas, in the English interest, 
escaped to France. 

Douglas (1482) brought him to England, where he 
swore allegiance to Edward IV., under whom, like 
Edward Balliol, he would hold Scotland if crowned. 
He was advancing on the Border with Edward's sup- 
port and with the Duke of Gloucester (Richard III.), 
and James had gone to Lauder to encounter him, when 
the Earl of Angus headed a conspiracy of nobles, such 
as Huntly, Lennox, and Buchan, seized Cochrane and 
other favourites of James, and hanged them over 
Lauder Bridge. The most tangible grievance was the 
increasing debasement of the coinage. James was im- 
mured at Edinburgh, but, by a compromise, Albany was 
restored to rank and estates. Meanwhile Gloucester 
captured Berwick, never to be recovered by Scotland. 
In 1483 Albany renewed, with many of the nobles, his 
intrigues with Edward for the betrayal of Scotland. 
In some unknown way James separated Albany from 
his confederates Atholl, Buchan, and Angus; Albany 
went to England, betrayed the Castle of Dunbar to 
England, and was only checked in his treasons by the 
death of Edward IV. (April 9, 1483), after which a 
full Parliament (July 7, 1483) condemned him and 
forfeited him in his absence. On July 22, 1484, he 
invaded Scotland with his ally, Douglas; they were 
routed at Lochmaben, Douglas was taken, and, by sin- 
gular clemency, was merely placed in seclusion in the 
Monastery of Lindores, while Albany, escaping to 
France, perished in a tournament, leaving a descendant, 



MARRIAGE NEGOTIATIONS 75 

who later, in the minority of James V., makes a figure 
in history. 

The death of Richard III. (August 18, 1485) and the 
accession of the prudent Henry VII. gave James a 
moment of safety. He turned his attention to the 
Church, and determined to prosecute for treason such 
Scottish clerics as purchased benefices through Rome. 
He negotiated for three English marriages, including 
that of his son James, Duke of Rothesay, to a daughter 
of Edward IV. ; he also negotiated for the recovery of 
Berwick, taken by Gloucester during Albany's invasion 
of 1482. After his death, and before it, James was 
accused, for these reasons, of disloyal dealings with 
England; and such nobles as Angus, up to the neck 
as they were in treason and rebellion, raised a party 
against him on the score that he was acting as they did. 
The almost aimless treachery of the Douglases, Red or 
Black, endured for centuries from the reign of David 
II. to that of James VI. Many nobles had received no 
amnesty for the outrage of Lauder Bridge ; their hopes 
turned to the heir of the Crown, James, Duke of 
Rothesay. We see them offering peace for an indem- 
nity in a Parliament of October 1487 ; the Estates 
refused all such pardons for a space of seven years; 
the king's party was manifestly the stronger. He was 
not to be intimidated ; he offended Home and the Humes 
by annexing the Priory of Coldingham (which they re- 
garded as their own) to the Royal Chapel at Stirling. 
The inveterate Angus, with others, induced Prince 
James to join them under arms. James took the Chan- 
cellorship from Argyll and sent envoys to England. 



76 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

The rebels, proclaiming the prince as king, intrigued 
with Henry VII. ; James was driven across the Forth, 
and was supported in the north by his uncle, Atholl, 
and by Huntly, Crawford, and Lord Lindsay of the 
Byres, Errol, Glamis, Forbes, and Tullibardine, and the 
chivalry of Angus and Strathtay. Attempts at pacifi- 
cation failed ; Stirling Castle was betrayed to the rebels, 
and James's host, swollen by the loyal burgesses of the 
towns, met the Border spears of Home and Hepburn, 
the Galloway men, and the levies of Angus at Sauchie 
Burn, near Bannockburn. 

In some way not understood, James, riding without a 
single knight or squire, fell from his horse, which had 
apparently run away with him, at Beaton's Mill, and 
was slain in bed, it was rumoured, by a priest, feigned 
or false, who heard his confession. The obscurity of 
his reign hangs darkest over his death, and the virulent 
Buchanan slandered him in his grave. Under his reign, 
Henryson, the greatest of the Chaucerian school in 
Scotland, produced his admirable poems. Many other 
poets whose works are lost were flourishing ; and ' The 
Wallace,' that elaborate plagiarism from Barbour's 
' The Brus,' was composed, and attributed to Blind 
Harry, a paid minstrel about the Court. 1 

1 See p. 42, note 1. 



CHAPTER XIV 

JAMES IV 

The new king, with Angus for his Governor, Argyll 
for his Chancellor, and with the Kers and Hepburns in 
office, was crowned at Scone about June 25, 1488. He 
was nearly seventeen, no child, but energetic in business 
as in pleasure, though lifelong remorse for his rebellion 
gnawed at his heart. He promptly put down a rebel- 
lion of the late king's friends and of the late king's foe, 
Lennox, then strong in the possession of Dumbarton 
Castle, which, as it commands the sea-entrance by 
Clyde, is of great importance in the reign of Mary 
and James VI. James III. must have paid attention to 
the navy, which, under Sir Andrew Wood, already faced 
English pirates triumphantly. James IV. spent much 
money on his fleet, buying timber from France, for he 
was determined to make Scotland a power of weight 
in Europe. But at the pinch his navy vanished like 
a mist. 

Spanish envoys and envoys from the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy visited James in 1488-1489 ; he was in close 
relations with France and Denmark, and caused 
anxieties to the first Tudor king, Henry VII., who kept 
up the Douglas alliance with Angus, and bought over 
Scottish politicians. While James, as his account-books 
show, was playing cards with Angus, that traitor was 
also negotiating the sale of Hermitage Castle, the main 

77 



78 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

hold of the Middle Border, to England. He was de- 
tected, and the castle was intrusted to a Hepburn, Earl 
of Bothwell ; it was still held by Queen Mary's Bothwell 
in 1567. The Hepburns rose to the earldom of Both- 
well on the death of Ramsay, a favourite of James III., 
who (1491) had arranged to kidnap James IV. with his 
brother, and hand them over to Henry VII., for £277, 
13s. 4d. ! Nothing came of this, and a truce with Eng- 
land was arranged in 1491. Through four reigns, till 
James VI. came to the English throne, the Tudor policy 
was to buy Scottish traitors, and attempt to secure the 
person of the Scottish monarch. 

Meanwhile, the Church was rent by jealousies be- 
tween the holder of the newly created Archbishopric of 
Glasgow (1491) and the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
and disturbed by the Lollards, in the region which was 
later the centre of the fiercest Covenanters, — Kyle in 
Ayrshire. But James laughed away the charges against 
the heretics (1494), whose views were, on many points, 
those of John Knox. In 1493-1495 James dealt in the 
usual way with the Highlanders and " the wicked blood 
of the Isles " : some were hanged, some imprisoned, some 
became sureties for the peacefulness of their clans. In 
1495, by way of tit-for-tat against English schemes, 
James began to back the claims of Perkin Warbeck, 
pretending to be Richard, Duke of York, escaped from 
the assassins employed by Richard III. Perkin, who- 
ever he was, had probably been intriguing between Ire- 
land and Burgundy since 1488. He was welcomed by 
James at Stirling in November 1495, and was wedded 
to the king's cousin, Catherine Gordon, daughter of 



HIGHLAND FEUDS 79 

the Earl of Huntly, now supreme in the north. Re- 
jecting a daughter of England, and Spanish efforts at 
pacification, James prepared to invade England in 
Perkin's cause; the scheme was sold by Ramsay, the 
would-be kidnapper, and came to no more than a useless 
raid of September 1496, followed by a futile attempt 
and a retreat in July 1497. The Spanish envoy, de 
Ayala, negotiated a seven years' truce in September, 
after Perkin had failed and been taken at Taunton. 

The Celts had again risen while James was busy in 
the Border ; he put them down, and made Argyll Lieu- 
tenant of the Isles. Between the Campbells and the 
Huntly Gordons, as custodians of the peace, the fighting 
clans were expected to be more orderly. On the other 
hand, a son of Angus Og, himself usually reckoned a 
bastard of the Lord of the Isles, gave much trouble. 
Angus had married a daughter of the Argyll of his 
day; their son, Donald Dubh, was kidnapped (or, 
rather, his mother was kidnapped before his birth) for 
Argyll; he now escaped, and in 1503 found allies 
among the chiefs, did much scathe, was taken in 1506, 
but was as active as ever forty years later. 

The central source of these endless Highland feuds 
was the family of the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, 
claiming the earldom of Ross, resisting the Lowland 
influences and those of the Gordons and Campbells 
(Huntly and Argyll), and seeking aid from England. 
With the capture of Donald Dubh (1506) the High- 
landers became for the while comparatively quiescent; 
under Lennox and Argyll they suffered in the defeat 
of Flodden. 



80 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

From 1497 to 1503 Henry VII. was negotiating for 
the marriage of James to his daughter, Margaret 
Tudor ; the marriage was celebrated on August 8, 1503, 
and a century later the great-grandson of Margaret, 
James VI., came to the English throne. But marriage 
does not make friendship. There had existed since 1491 
a secret alliance by which Scotland was bound to de- 
fend France if attacked by England. Henry's negotia- 
tions for the kidnapping of James were of April of the 
same year. Margaret, the young queen, after her mar- 
riage, was soon involved in bitter quarrels over her 
dowry with her own family; the slaying of a Sir Rob- 
ert Ker, Warden of the Marches, by a Heron in a 
Border fray (1508), left an unhealed sore, as Eng- 
land would not give up Heron and his accomplice. 
Henry VII. had been pacific, but his death, in 1509, 
left James to face his hostile brother-in-law, the fiery 
young Henry VIII. 

In 1511 the Holy League under the Pope, against 
France, imperilled James's French ally. He began to 
build great ships of war ; his sea-captain, Barton, pirat- 
ing about, was defeated and slain by ships under two 
of the Howards, sons of the Earl of Surrey (August 
1511). James remonstrated, Henry was firm, and the 
Border feud of Ker and Heron was festering; more- 
over, Henry was a party to the League against France, 
and France was urging James to attack England. He 
saw, and wrote to the King of Denmark, that, if France 
were down, the turn of Scotland to fall would follow. 
In March 1513, an English diplomatist, West, found 
James in a wild mood, distraught " like a fey man." 



JAMES AND HENRY VIII 81 

Chivalry, and even national safety, called him to war ; 
while his old remorse drove him into a religious retreat, 
and he was on hostile terms with the Pope. On May 
£4th, in a letter to Henry, he made a last attempt to 
obtain a truce, but on June 30th Henry invaded France. 
The French queen despatched to James, as to her true 
knight, a letter and a ring. He sent his fleet to sea ; it 
vanished like a dream. He challenged Henry through a 
herald on July 26th, and, in face of strange and evil 
omens, summoned the whole force of his kingdom, 
crossed the Border on August 2£d, took Norham 
Castle on Tweed, with the holds of Eital, Chillingham, 
and Ford, which he made his headquarters, and awaited 
the approach of Surrey and the levies of the Stanleys. 
On September 5th he demolished Ford Castle, and took 
position on the crest of Flodden Edge, with the deep 
and sluggish water of Till at its feet. Surrey, com- 
manding an army all but destitute of supplies, out- 
manoeuvred James, led his men unseen behind a range 
of hills to a position where, if he could maintain him- 
self, he was upon James's line of communications, and 
thence marched against him to Branxton Ridge, under 
Flodden Edge. 

James was ignorant of Surrey's movement till he 
saw the approach of his standards. In place of retain- 
ing his position, he hurled his force down to Branxton, 
his gunners could not manage their new French ord- 
nance, and though Home with the Border spears and 
Huntly had a success on the right, the Borderers made 
no more efforts, and, on the left, the Celts fled swiftly 
after the fall of Lennox and Argyll. In the centre 



82 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Crawford and Rothes were slain, and James, with the 
steady spearmen of his command, drove straight at 
Surrey. James, as the Spaniard Ayala said, " was no 
general : he was a fightings man." He was outflanked 
by the Admiral (Howard) and Dacre; his force was 
surrounded by charging horse and foot, and rained on 
by arrows. But 

"The stubborn spearmen still made good 
Their dark impenetrable wood," 

when James rushed from the ranks, hewed his way to 
within a lance's length of Surrey (so Surrey writes), 
and ,riied, riddled with arrows, his neck gashed by a 
bill-stroke, his left hand almost sundered from his body. 
Night fell on the unbroken Scottish phalanx, but when 
dawn arrived only a force of Border prickers was 
hovering on the fringes of the field. Thirteen dead earls 
lay in a ring about their master; there too lay his 
natural son, the young Archbishop of St. Andrews, and 
the Bishops of Caithness and the Isles. Scarce a noble 
or gentle house of the Lowlands but reckons an ancestor 
slain at Flodden. 

Surrey did not pursue his victory, which was won, 
despite sore lack of supplies, by his clever tactics, by 
the superior discipline of his men, by their marching 
powers, and by the glorious rashness of the Scottish 
king. It is easy, and it is customary, to blame James's 
adherence to the French alliance as if it were born of a 
foolish chivalry. But he had passed through long 
stress of mind concerning this matter. If he rejected 
the allurements of France, if France were overwhelmed, 



UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN FOUNDED 83 

he knew well that the turn of Scotland would come soon. 
The ambitions and the claims of Henry VIII. were those 
of the first Edwards. England was bent on the con- 
quest of Scotland at the earliest opportunity, and 
through the entire Tudor period England was the home 
and her monarch the ally of every domestic foe and 
traitor to the Scottish Crown. 

Scotland, under James, had much prospered in 
wealth and even in comfort. Ayala might flatter in 
some degree, but he attests the great increase in com- 
fort and in wealth. 

In 1495 Bishop Elphinstone founded the University 
of Aberdeen, while (1496) Parliament decreed a course 
of school and college for the sons of barons and free- 
holders of competent estate. Prior Hepburn founded 
the College of St. Leonard's in the University of St. 
Andrews ; and in 1507 Chepman received a royal patent 
as a printer. Meanwhile Dunbar, reckoned by some the 
chief poet of Scotland before Burns, was already de- 
nouncing the luxury and vice of the clergy, though his 
own life set them a bad example. But with Dunbar, 
Henryson, and others, Scotland had a school of poets 
much superior to any that England had reared since 
the death of Chaucer. Scotland now enjoyed her brief 
glimpse of the Revival of Learning; and James, like 
Charles II., fostered the early movements of chemistry 
and physical science. But Flodden ruined all, and the 
country, under the long minority of James V., was 
robbed and distracted by English intrigues ; by the fol- 
lies and loves of Margaret Tudor; by actual warfare 
between rival candidates for ecclesiastical place; by; 



84 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

the ambitions and treasons of the Douglases and other 
nobles; and by the arrival from France of the son of 
Albany, that rebel brother of James III. 

The truth of the saying, " Woe to the kingdom whose 
king is a child," was never more bitterly proved than in 
Scotland between the day of Flodden and the day of 
the return of Mary Stuart from France (1513-1561). 
James V. was not only a child and fatherless ; he had 
a mother whose passions and passionate changes in love 
resembled those of her brother, Henry VIII. Conse- 
quently, when the inevitable problem arose, was Scot- 
land during the minority to side with England or with 
France? the queen-mother wavered ceaselessly between 
the party of her brother, the English king, and the 
party of France; while Henry VIII. could not be 
trusted, and the policy of France in regard to England 
did not permit her to offer any stable support to the 
cause of Scottish independence. The great nobles 
changed sides constantly, each " fighting for his own 
hand," and for the spoils of a Church in which benefices 
were struggled for and sold like stocks on the Exchange. 

The question, Was Scotland to ally herself with Eng- 
land or with France ? later came to mean, Was Scotland 
to break with Rome or to cling to Rome ? Owing mainly 
to the selfish and unscrupulous perfidy of Henry VIII., 
James V. was condemned, as the least of two evils, to 
adopt the Catholic side in the great religious revolu- 
tion; while the statesmanship of the Beatons, Arch- 
bishops of St. Andrews, preserved Scotland from Eng- 
lish domination, thereby preventing the country from 
adopting Henry's Church, the Anglican, and giving 



FACTIONS AND FEUDS 85 

Calvinism and Presbyterianism the opportunity which 
was resolutely taken and held. 

The real issue of the complex faction fight during 
James's minority was thus of the most essential im- 
portance ; but the constant shiftings of parties and per- 
sons cannot be dealt with fully in our space. James's 
mother had a natural claim to the guardianship of her 
son, and was left Regent by the will of James IV., but 
she was the sister of Scotland's enemy, Henry VIII. 
Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow (later of St. Andrews), 
with the Earl of Arran (now the title of the Hamil- 
tons), Huntly, and Angus were to advise the queen till 
the arrival of Albany (son of the brother of James 
III.), who was summoned from France. Albany, of 
course, stood for the French alliance, but when the 
queen-mother (August 6, 1514) married the new young 
Earl of Angus, the grandson and successor of the aged 
traitor, " Bell the Cat," the earl began to carry on the 
usual unpatriotic policy of his House. The appoint- 
ment to the see of St. Andrews was competed for by 
the poet Gawain Douglas, uncle of the new Earl of 
Angus ; and himself of the English party ; by Hepburn, 
Prior of St. Andrews, who fortified the Abbey ; and by 
Forman, Bishop of Moray, a partisan of France, and 
a man accused of having induced James IV. to declare 
war against England. 

After long and scandalous intrigues, Forman obtained 
the see. Albany was Regent for a while, and at in- 
tervals he repaired to France; he was in the favour of 
the queen-mother when later she quarrelled with her 
husband, Angus. At one moment, Margaret and Angus 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

fled to England, where was born her daughter Mar- 
garet, later Lady Lennox and mother of Henry 
Darnley. 

Angus, with Home, now recrbssed the Border 
(1516), and was reconciled to Albany; against all unity 
in Scotland Henry intrigued, bribing with a free hand, 
his main object being to get Albany sent out of the 
country. In early autumn 1516 Home, the leader of 
the Borderers at Flodden, and his brother were exe- 
cuted for treason; in June 1517 Albany went to seek 
aid and counsel in France; when the queen-mother re- 
turned from England to Scotland, where, if she retained 
any influence, she might be useful to her brother's 
schemes. But, contrary to Henry's interests, in this 
year Albany renewed the old alliance with France; 
while, in 1518, the queen-mother desired to divorce 
Angus. But Angus was a serviceable tool of Henry, 
who prevented his sister from having her way ; and now 
the heads of the parties in the distracted country were 
Arran, chief of the Hamiltons, and Beaton, Archbishop 
of Glasgow, standing for France; and Angus repre- 
senting the English party. 

Their forces met at Edinburgh in the street battle of 
"Cleanse the Causeway," wherein the Archbishop of 
Glasgow wore armour, and the Douglases beat the 
Hamiltons out of the town (April 30, 1520). Albany 
returned (1521), but the nobles would not join with 
him in an English war (1522). Again he went to 
France, while Surrey devastated the Scottish Border 
(1523). Albany returned while Surrey was burning 
Jedburgh, was once more deserted by the Scottish forces 



STRUGGLES FOR THE KING'S PERSON 87 

on the Tweed, and left the country for ever in 1524. 
Angus now returned from England; but the queen- 
mother cast her affections on young Henry Stewart 
(Lord Methven), while Angus got possession of the 
boy king (June 1526) and held him, a reluctant ward, 
in the English interest. 

Lennox was now the chief foe of Arran, and Angus, 
with whom Arran had coalesced ; and Lennox desired to 
deliver James out of Angus's hands. On July 26, 1526, 
not far from Melrose, Walter Scott of Buccleuch at- 
tacked the forces guarding the prince; among them 
was Ker of Cess ford, who was slain by an Elliot when 
Buccleuch's men rallied at the rock called " Turn 
Again." Hence sprang a long-enduring blood-feud of 
Scotts and Kers ; but Angus retained the prince, and 
in a later fight in the cause of James's delivery, Lennox 
was slain by the Hamiltons near Linlithgow. The 
spring of 1528 was marked by the burning of a Hamil- 
ton, Patrick, Abbot of Ferae, at St. Andrews, for his 
Lutheran opinions. Angus had been making futile at- 
tacks on the Border thieves, mainly the Armstrongs, 
who now became very prominent and picturesque rob- 
bers. He meant to carry James with him on one of 
these expeditions; but in June 1528 the young king 
escaped from Edinburgh Castle, and rode to Stirling, 
where he was welcomed by his mother and her parti- 
sans. Among them were Arran, Argyll, Moray, Both- 
well, and other nobles, with Maxwell and the Laird of 
Buccleuch, Sir Walter Scott. Angus and his kin were 
forfeited ; he was driven across the Border in November, 
to work what mischief he might against his country; 



88 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

he did not return till the death of James V. Meanwhile 
James was at peace with his uncle, Henry VIII. He 
(1529-1530) attempted to bring the Border into his 
peace, and hanged Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, 
with circumstances of treachery, says the ballad, — as a 
ballad-maker was certain to say. 

Campbells, Macleans, and Macdonalds had all this 
while been burning each other's lands, and cutting each) 
other's throats. James visited them, and partly quieted 
them, incarcerating the Earl of Argyll. 

Bothwell and Angus now conspired together to crown 
Henry VIII. in Edinburgh; but, in May 1534, a treaty 
of peace was made, to last till the death of either mon- 
arch and a year longer. 



CHAPTER XV 

JAMES V. AND THE REFORMATION 

The new times were at the door. In 14$5 the Scot- 
tish Parliament had forbidden Lutheran books to be 
imported. But they were, of course, smuggled in ; and 
the seed of religious revolution fell on minds disgusted 
by the greed and anarchy of the clerical fighters and 
jobbers of benefices. 

James V., after he had shaken off the Douglases and 
become " a free king," had to deal with a political and 
religious situation, out of which we may say in the 
Scots phrase, " there was no outgait." His was the 
dilemma of his father before Flodden. How, against 
the perfidious ambition, the force in war, and the pur- 
chasing powers of Henry VIII., was James to preserve 
the national independence of Scotland? His problem 
was even harder than that of his father, because when 
Henry broke with Rome and robbed the religious houses 
a large minority, at least, of the Scottish nobles, gen- 
try, and middle classes were, so far, heartily on the 
anti-Roman side. They were tired of Rome, tired of 
the profligacy, ignorance, and insatiable greed of the 
ecclesiastical dignitaries who, too often, were reckless 
cadets of the noble families. Many Scots had read the 
Lutheran books and disbelieved in transubstantiation ; 
thought that money paid for prayers for the dead was 
money wasted ; preferred a married and preaching to a 

89 



go A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

celibate and licentious clergy who celebrated Mass; 
were convinced that saintly images were idols, that 
saintly miracles were impostures. Above all, the nobles 
coveted the lands of the Church, the spoils of the reli- 
gious houses. 

In Scotland, as elsewhere, the causes of the religious 
revolution were many. The wealth and luxury of the 
higher clergy, and of the dwellers in the abbeys, had 
long been the butt of satire and of the fiercer indigna- 
tion of the people. Benefices, great and small, were 
jobbed on every side between the popes, the kings, and 
the great nobles. Ignorant and profligate cadets of 
the great houses were appointed to high ecclesiastical 
offices, while the minor clergy were inconceivably ig- 
norant just at the moment when the new critical learn- 
ing, with knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, was revo- 
lutionising the study of the sacred books. The celibacy 
of the clergy had become a mere farce; and they got 
dispensations enabling them to obtain ecclesiastical liv- 
ings for their bastards. The kings set the worst ex- 
ample: both James IV. and James V. secured the richest 
abbeys, and, in the case of James IV., the Primacy, 
for their bastard sons. All these abuses were of old 
standing. " Early in the thirteenth century certain of 
the abbots of Jedburgh, supported by their chapters, 
had granted certain of their appropriate churches to 
priests with a right of succession to their sons " (see 
' The Mediaeval Church in Scotland,' by the late Bishop 
Dowden, chap. xix. Maclehose, 1910.) Oppressive 
customs by which " the upmost claith," or a pecuniary 
equivalent, was extorted as a kind of death-duty by the 



A MARTYRDOM 91 

clergy, were sanctioned by excommunication: no griev- 
ance was more bitterly felt by the poor. The once- 
dreaded curses on evil-doers became a popular jest: 
purgatory was a mere excuse for getting money for 
masses. 

In short, the whole mediaeval system was morally 
rotten ; the statements drawn up by councils which made 
vain attempts to check the stereotyped abuses are as 
candid and copious concerning all these things as the 
satires of Sir David Lyndsay. 

Then came disbelief in mediaeval dogmas: the 
Lutheran and other heretical books were secretly pur- 
chased and their contents assimilated. Intercession of 
saints, images, pilgrimages, the doctrine of the Eu- 
charist, all fell into contempt. 

As early as February 1428, as we have seen, the first 
Scottish martyr for evangelical religion, Patrick Ham- 
ilton, was burned at St. Andrews. This sufferer was 
the son of a bastard of that Lord Hamilton who mar- 
ried the sister of James III. As was usual, he obtained, 
when a little boy, an abbey, that of Feme in Ross-shire. 
He drew the revenues, but did not wear the costume of 
his place; in fact, he was an example of the ordinary 
abuses. Educated at Paris and Louvain, he came in 
contact with the criticism of Erasmus and the Lutheran 
controversy. He next read at St. Andrews, and he 
married. Suspected of heresy in 1427, he retired to 
Germany ; he wrote theses called * Patrick's Places,' 
which were reckoned heretical; he was arrested, was 
offered by Archbishop Beaton a chance to escape^ dis- 
dained it, and was burned with unusual cruelty, — as a 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

rule, heretics in Scotland were strangled before burn- 
ing. There were other similar cases, nor could James 
interfere — he was bound by his Coronation Oath ; again, 
he found in the bishops his best diplomatists, and they, 
of course, were all for the French alliance, in the cause 
of the independence of their country and Church as 
against Henry VIII. 

Thus James, in justifiable dread of the unscrupulous 
ambition of Henry VIII., could not run the English 
course, could not accept the varying creeds which 
Henry, who was his own Pope, put forward as his 
spirit moved him. James was thus inevitably commit- 
ted to the losing cause — the cause of Catholicism and 
of France — while the intelligence no less than the ava- 
rice of his nobles and gentry ran the English course. 

James had practically no choice. In 1536 Henry 
proposed a meeting with James " as far within England 
as possible." Knowing, as we do, that Henry was mak- 
ing repeated attempts to have James kidnapped and 
Archbishop Beaton also, we are surprised that James 
was apparently delighted at the hope of an interview 
with his uncle — in England. Henry declined to explain 
why he desired a meeting when James put the question 
to his envoy. James said, in effect, that he must act 
by advice of his Council, which, so far as it was clerical, 
opposed the scheme. Henry justified the views of the 
Council, later, when James, returning from a visit to 
France, asked permission to pass through England. 
" It is the king's honour not to receive the King of 
Scots in his realm except as a vassal, for there never 
came King of Scots into England in peaceful manner 



THE GUISE MARRIAGE 93 

otherwise." Certain it is that, however James might 
enter England, he would leave it only as a vassal. 
Nevertheless his Council, especially his clergy, are 
blamed for embroiling James with Henry by dissuad- 
ing him from meeting his uncle in England. Manifestly 
they had no choice. Henry had shown his hand too 
often. 

At this time James, by Margaret Erskine, became the 
father of James, later the Regent Moray. Strange 
tragedies would never have occurred had the king first 
married Margaret Erskine, who, by 1536, was the wife 
of Douglas of Loch Leven. He is said to have wished 
for her a divorce that he might marry her; this could 
not be: he visited France, and on New Year's Day, 
1537, wedded Madeline, daughter of Francis I. Six 
months later she died in Scotland. 

Marriage for the king was necessary, and David 
Beaton, later Cardinal Beaton and Archbishop of St. 
Andrews, obtained for his lord a lady coveted by Henry 
VIII., Mary, of the great Catholic house of Lorraine, 
widow of the Due de Longueville, and sister of the 
popular and ambitious Guises. The pair were wedded 
on June 10, 1538 ; there was fresh offence to Henry and 
a closer tie to the Catholic cause. The appointment of 
Cardinal Beaton (1539) to the see of St. Andrews, in 
succession to his uncle, gave James a servant of high 
ecclesiastical rank, great subtlety, and indomitable reso- 
lution, but remote from chastity of life and from 
clemency to heretics. Martyrdoms became more fre- 
quent, and George Buchanan, who had been tutor of 
James's son by Margaret Erskine, thought well to open 



94 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

a window in a house where he was confined, walk out, 
and depart to the Continent. Meanwhile Henry, no 
less than Beaton, was busily burning his own martyrs. 
In 1539 Henry renewed his intercourse with James, 
attempting to shake his faith in David Beaton, and 
to make him rob his Church. James replied that he 
preferred to try to reform it; and he enjoyed, in 1540, 
Sir David Lyndsay's satirical play on the vices of the 
clergy, and, indeed, of all orders of men. In 1540 
James ratified the College of Justice, the fifteen Lords 
of Session, sitting as judges in Edinburgh. 

In 1541 the idea of a meeting between James and 
Henry was again mooted, and Henry actually went to 
York, where James did not appear. Henry, who had 
expected him, was furious. In August 1542, on a futile 
pretext, he sent Norfolk with a great force to harry 
the Border. The English had the worse at the battle 
of Haddon Rig; negotiations followed; Henry pro- 
claimed that Scottish kings had always been vassals of 
England, and horrified his Council by openly propos- 
ing to kidnap James. Henry's forces were now 
wrecking an abbey and killing women on the Border. 
James tried to retaliate, but his levies (October 31) 
at Fala Moor declined to follow him across the Border : 
they remembered Flodden, moreover they could not risk 
the person of a childless king. James prepared, how- 
ever, for a raid on a great scale on the western Border, 
but the fact had been divulged by Sir George Douglas, 
Angus's brother, and had also been sold to Dacre, 
cheap, by another Scot. The English despatches prove 
that Wharton had full time for preparation, and led 



DEATH OF JAMES V 95 

a competent force of horse, which, near Arthuret, 
charged on the right flank of the Scots, who slowly 
retreated, till they were entangled between the Esk 
and a morass, and lost their formation and their artil- 
lery, with 1200 men: a few were slain, most were 
drowned or were taken prisoners. 

The raid was no secret of the king and the priests, 
as Knox absurdly states ; nobles of the Reforming no 
less than of the Catholic party were engaged ; the Eng- 
lish had full warning and a force of 3000 men, not of 
400 farmers ; the Scots were beaten through their own 
ignorance of the ground in which they had been burn- 
ing and plundering. As to confusion caused by the 
claim of Oliver Sinclair to be commander, it is not 
corroborated by contemporary despatches, though Sir 
George Douglas reports James's lament for the conduct 
of his favourite, " Fled Oliver ! fled Oliver ! " The mis- 
fortune broke the heart of James. He went to Edin- 
burgh, did some business, retired for a week to Linlith- 
gow, 1 where his queen was awaiting her delivery, and 
thence went to Falkland, and died of nothing more 
specific than shame, grief, and despair. He lived to 
hear of the birth of his daughter, Mary (December 8, 
1542). " It came with a lass and it will go with a 
lass," he is said to have muttered. 

On December 14th James passed away, broken by 
his impossible task, lost in the bewildering paths from 
which there was no outgait. 

James was personally popular for his gaiety and his 

1 Knox gives another account. Our evidence is from a house- 
hold book of expenses, Liber Emptorum, in MS. 



96 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

adventures while he wandered in disguise. Humorous 
poems are attributed to him. A man of greater genius 
than his might have failed when confronted by a tyrant 
so wealthy, ambitious, cruel, and destitute of honour as 
Henry VIII. ; constantly engaged with James's traitors 
in efforts to seize or slay him and his advisers. It is an 
easy thing to attack James because he would not trust 
Henry, a man who ruined all that did trust to his 
seeming favour. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE MINORITY OF MARY STUART 

When James died, Henry VIII. seemed to hold in his 
hand all the winning cards in the game of which Scot- 
land was the stake. He held Angus and his brother 
George Douglas; when he slipped them they would 
again wield the whole force of their House in the in- 
terests of England and of Henry's religion. More- 
over, he held many noble prisoners taken at Solway — 
Glencairn, Maxwell, Cassilis, Fleming, Grey, and oth- 
ers, — and all of these, save Sir George Douglas, " have 
not sticked," says Henry himself, " to take upon them 
to set the crown of Scotland on our head." Henry's 
object was to get " the child, the person of the 
Cardinal, and of such as be chief hindrances to our 
purpose, and also the chief holds and fortresses into 
our hands." By sheer brigandage the Reformer king 
hoped to succeed where the Edwards had failed. He 
took the oaths of his prisoners, making them swear to 
secure for him the child, Beaton, and the castles, and 
later released them to do his bidding. 

Henry's failure was due to the genius and resolu- 
tion of Cardinal Beaton, heading the Catholic party. 

What occurred in Scotland on James's death is ob- 
scure. Later, Beaton was said to have made the dying 
king's hand subscribe a blank paper filled up by 
appointment of Beaton himself as one of a Regency 

97 



98 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Council of four or five. There is no evidence for the 
tale. What actually occurred was the proclamation 
of the Earls of Arran, Argyll, Huntly, Moray, and of 
Beaton as Regents (December 19, 1542). Arran, the 
chief of the Hamiltons, was, we know, unless ousted 
by Henry VIII., the next heir to the throne after the 
new-born Mary. He was a good-hearted man, but the 
weakest of mortals, and his constant veerings from 
the Catholic and national to the English and reform- 
ing side were probably caused by his knowledge of 
his very doubtful legitimacy. Either party could bring 
up the doubt ; Beaton, having the ear of the Pope, could 
be specially dangerous, but so could the opposite party 
if once firmly seated in office. Arran, in any case, 
presently ousted the Archbishop of Glasgow from the 
Chancellorship and gave the seals to Beaton — the man 
whom he presently accused of a shameless forgery of 
James's will. 1 

The Regency soon came into Arran's own hands: 
the Solway Moss prisoners, learning this as they 
journeyed north, began to repent of their oaths of 
treachery, especially as their oaths were known or sus- 
pected in Scotland. George Douglas prevailed on Arrari 
to seize and imprison Beaton till he answered certain 
charges ; but no charges were ever made public, none 
were produced. The clergy refused to christen or bury 
during his captivity. Parliament met (March 12, 
1543), and still there was silence as to the nature of 
the accusations against Beaton; and by March ££ 

1 As to the story of forgery, see a full discussion in the author's 
•History of Scotland,' i. 460-467. 1900. 



HENRY TURNS TO ARRAN 99 

George Douglas himself released the Cardinal (of 
course for a consideration) and carried him to his own 
strong castle of St. Andrews. 

Parliament permitted the reading but forbade the 
discussion of the Bible in English. Arran was posing 
as a kind of Protestant. Ambassadors were sent to 
Henry to negotiate a marriage between his son Edward 
and the baby queen; but Scotland would not give up 
a fortress, would never resign her independence, would 
not place Mary in Henry's hands, would never submit 
to any but a native ruler. 

The airy castle of Henry's hopes fell into dust, built 
as it was on the oaths of traitors. Love of such a 
religion as Henry professed, retaining the Mass and 
making free use of the stake and the gibbet, was not, 
even to Protestants, so attractive as to make them run 
the English course and submit to the English Lord 
Paramount. Some time was needed to make Scots, 
whatever their religious opinions, lick the English rod. 
But the scale was soon to turn; for every reforming 
sermon was apt to produce the harrying of religious 
houses, and every punishment of the robbers was perse- 
cution intolerable against which men sought English 
protection. 

Henry VIII. now turned to Arran for support. To 
Arran he offered the hand of his daughter, the Princess 
Elizabeth, who should later marry the heir of the 
Hamiltons. But by mid- April Arran was under the 
influence of his bastard brother, the Abbot of Paisley 
(later Archbishop Hamilton). The Earl of Lennox, a 
Stuart, and Keeper of Dumbarton Castle, arrived from 



100 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

France. He was hostile to Arran; for, if Arran were 
illegitimate, Lennox was next heir to the crown after 
Mary : he was thus, for the moment, the ally of Beaton 
against Arran. George Douglas visited Henry, and 
returned with his terms — Mary to be handed over to 
England at the age of ten, and to marry Prince Edward 
at twelve; Arran (by a prior arrangement) was to 
receive Scotland north of Forth, an auxiliary English 
army, and the hand of Elizabeth for his son. To the 
English contingent Arran preferred £5000 in ready 
money — that was his price. 

Sadleyr, Henry's envoy, saw Mary of Guise, and saw 
her little daughter unclothed; he admired the child, 
but could not disentangle the cross-webs of intrigue. 
The national party — the Catholic party — was stron- 
gest, because least disunited. When the Scottish am- 
bassadors who went to Henry in spring returned (July 
21), the national party seized Mary and carried her 
to Stirling, where they offered Arran a meeting, and 
(he said) the child queen's hand for his son. But 
Arran's own partisans, Glencairn and Cassilis, told 
Sadleyr that he fabled freely. Representatives of both 
parties accepted Henry's terms, but delayed the ratifi- 
cation. Henry insisted that it should be ratified by 
August 24, but on August 16 he seized six Scottish 
merchant ships. Though the treaty was ratified on 
August 25, Arran was compelled to insist on compensa- 
tion for the ships, but on August 28 he proclaimed 
Beaton a traitor. In the beginning of September 
Arran favoured the wrecking of the Franciscan monas- 
tery in Edinburgh ; and at Dundee the mob, moved by 



WAVERINGS OF ARRAN 101 

sermons from the celebrated martyr George Wishart, 
did sack the houses of the Franciscans and the Do- 
minicans ; Beaton's Abbey of Arbroath and the Abbey 
of Lindores were also plundered. Clearly it was be- 
lieved that Beaton was down, and that church-pillage 
was authorised by Arran. 

Yet on September 3 Arran joined hands with 
Beaton! The Cardinal, by threatening to disprove 
Arran's legitimacy and ruin his hopes of the crown, 
or in some other way, had dominated the waverer, 
while Henry (August 89) was mobilising an army of 
20,000 men for the invasion of Scotland. On Septem- 
ber 9 Mary was crowned at Stirling. But Beaton could 
not hold both Arran and his rival Lennox, who com- 
mitted an act of disgraceful treachery. With Glen- 
cairn he seized large supplies of money and stores sent 
by France to Dumbarton Castle. In 1544 he fled to 
England and to the protection of Henry, and married 
Margaret, daughter of Angus and Margaret Tudor, 
widow of James IV. He became the father of Darnley, 
Mary's husband in later years, and the fortunes of 
Scotland were fatally involved in the feud between 
the Lennox Stewarts and the House of Hamilton. 

Meanwhile (November 1543) Arran and Beaton to- 
gether broke and persecuted the abbey robbers of 
Perthshire and Angus, making " martyrs " and incur- 
ring, on Beaton's part, fatal feuds with Leslies, Greys, 
Learmonths, and Kirkcaldys. Parliament (December 
11) declared the treaty with England void; the party 
of the Douglases, equally suspected by Henry and by 
Beaton, was crushed, and George Douglas was held a 



10 2 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

hostage, still betraying his country in letters to Eng- 
land. Martyrs were burned in Perth and Dundee, which 
merely infuriated the populace. In April 1544, while 
Henry was giving the most cruel orders to his army 
of invasion, one Wishart visited him with offers, which 
were accepted, for the murder of the Cardinal. 1 Early 
in May the English army under Hertford took Leith, 
" raised a jolly fire," says Hertford, in Edinburgh; he 
burned the towns on his line of march, and retired. 

On May 17 Lennox and Glencairn sold themselves 
to Henry; for ample rewards they were to secure the 
teaching of God's word " as the mere and only founda- 
tion whence proceeds all truth and honour " ! Arran 
defeated Glencairn when he attempted his godly task, 
and Lennox was driven back into England. 

In June, Mary of Guise fell into the hands of nobles 
led by Angus, while the^ Fife, Perthshire, and Angus 
lairds, lately Beaton's deadly foes, came into the Car- 
dinal's party. With him and Arran, in November, were 
banded the Protestants who were to be his murderers, 
while the Douglases, in December, were cleared by 
Parliament of all their offences, and Henry offered 3000 
crowns for their " trapping." Angus, in February 
1545, protested that he loved Henry " best of all men," 
and would make Lennox Governor of Scotland, while 
Wharton, for Henry, was trying to kidnap Angus. En- 
raged by the English desecration of his ancestors' 
graves at Melrose Abbey, Angus united with Arran, 
Norman Leslie, and Buccleuch to annihilate an Eng- 

1 There is no proof that this man was the preacher George 
Wishart, later burned. 



VICTORY OF ANCRUM 103 

lish force at Ancrum Moor, where Henry's men lost 
800 slain and 2000 prisoners. The loyalty of Angus 
to his country was now, by innocents like Arran, 
thought assured. The plot for Beaton's murder was 
in 1545 negotiated between Henry and Cassilis, backed 
by George Douglas; and Crichton of Brunston, as be- 
fore, was engaged, a godly laird in Lothian. In Au- 
gust the Douglases boast that, as Henry's friends, 
they have frustrated an invasion of England with a 
large French contingent, which they pretended to lead, 
while they secured its failure. Meanwhile, after forty 
years, Donald Dubh, and all the great western chiefs, 
none of whom could write, renewed the alliance of 1463 
with England, calling themselves " auld enemies of Scot- 
land." Their religious predilections, however, were not 
Protestant. They promised to destroy or reduce half 
of Scotland, and hailed Lennox as Governor, as in 
Angus's offer to Henry in spring 1545. Lennox did 
make an attempt against Dumbarton in November with 
Donald Dubh. They failed, and Donald died, without 
legitimate issue, at Drogheda. The Macleans, 
Macleods, and Macneils then came into the national 
party. 

In September 1545 Hertford, with an English force, 
destroyed the religious houses at Melrose, Kelso, Dry- 
burgh, and Jedburgh. 1 Meanwhile the two Douglases 
skulked with the murderous traitor Cassilis in Ayrshire, 

1 A curious controversy is constantly revived in this matter. It 
is urged that Knox's mobs did not destroy the abbey churches of 
Kelso, Melrose, Dryburgh, Roxburgh, and Coldingham: that was 
done by Hertford's army. If so, they merely deprived the Knox- 



104 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

and Henry tried to induce French deserters from the 
Scottish flag to murder Beaton and Arran. 

Beaton could scarcely escape for ever from so many 
plots. His capture, in January 1546, of George 
Wishart, an eminently learned and virtuous Protestant 
preacher, and an intimate associate of the murderous, 
double-dyed traitor Brunston and of other Lothian 
pietists of the English party; and his burning of 
Wishart at St. Andrews, on March 1, 1546, sealed the 
Cardinal's doom. On May 29th he was surprised in 
his castle of St. Andrews and slain by his former ally, 
Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, with Kirkcaldy of 
Grange, and James Melville, who seems to have dealt 
the final stab after preaching at his powerless victim. 
They insulted the corpse, and held St. Andrews Castle 
against all comers. 

How gallant a fight Beaton had waged against ad- 
versaries how many and multifarious, how murderous, 
self-seeking, treacherous, and hypocritical, we have 
seen. He maintained the independence of Scotland 
against the most recklessly unscrupulous of assailants, 
though probably he was rather bent on defending the 
lost cause of a Church entirely and intolerably corrupt. 

The two causes were at the moment inseparable, and, 
whatever we may think of the Church of Rome, it was 
not more bloodily inclined than the Church of which 
Henry was Pope, while it was less illogical, not being 

ian brethren of the pleasures of destruction which they enjoyed 
almost everywhere else. The English, if guilty, left at Melrose, 
Jedburgh, Coldingham, and Kelso more beautiful remains of 
mediaeval architecture than the Reformers were wont to spare. 



BEATON MAKES CALVINISM POSSIBLE 105 

the creature of a secular tyrant. If Henry and his 
party had won their game, the Church of Scotland 
would have been Henry's Church — would have been 
Anglican. Thus it was Beaton who, by defeating 
Henry, made Presbyterian Calvinism possible in 
Scotland. 



CHAPTER XVII 

REGENCY OP ARRAN 

The death of Cardinal Beaton left Scotland and the 
Church without a skilled and resolute defender. His 
successor in the see, Archbishop Hamilton, a half- 
brother of the Regent, was more licentious than the 
Cardinal (who seems to have been constant to Mariotte 
Ogilvy), and had little of his political genius. The 
murderers, with others of their party, held St. Andrews 
Castle, strong in its new fortifications, which the queen- 
mother and Arran, the Regent, were unable to reduce. 
Receiving supplies from England by sea, and abetted 
by Henry VIII., the murderers were in treaty with him 
to work all his will, while some nobles, like Argyll and 
Huntly, wavered ; though the Douglases now renounced 
their compact with England, and their promise to give 
the child queen in marriage to Henry's son. At the 
end of November, despairing of success in the siege, 
Arran asked France to send men and ships to take 
St. Andrews Castle from the assassins, who, in Decem- 
ber, obtained an armistice. They would surrender, 
they said, when they got a pardon for their guilt from 
the Pope; but they begged Henry VIII. to move the 
Emperor to move the Pope to give no pardon! 
The remission, none the less, arrived early in April 

106 



JOHN KNOX 107 

1547, but was mocked at by the garrison of the 
castle. 1 

The garrison and inmates of the castle presently 
welcomed the arrival of John Knox and some of his 
pupils. Knox (born in Haddington, 1513-1515?), a 
priest and notary, had borne a two-handed sword and 
been of the body-guard of Wishart. He was now in- 
vited by John Rough, the chaplain, to take on him the 
office of preacher, which he did, weeping, so strong 
was his sense of the solemnity of his duties. He also 
preached and disputed with feeble clerical opponents 
in the town. The congregation in the castle, though 
devout, were ruffianly in their lives, nor did he spare 
rebukes to his flock. 

Before Knox arrived, Henry VIII. and Francis II. 
had died; the successor of Francis, Henri II., sent to 
Scotland Monsieur d'Oysel, who became the right-hand 
man of Mary of Guise in the Government. Meanwhile 
the advance of an English force against the Border, 
where they occupied Langholm, caused Arran to lead 
thither the national levies. But this gave no great 
relief to the besieged in the castle of St. Andrews. In 
mid-July a well-equipped French fleet swept up the 
east coast ; men were landed with guns ; French artillery 
was planted on the cathedral roof and the steeple of 
St. Salvator's College, and poured a plunging fire into 

1 This part of our history is usually and erroneously told as 
given by Knox, writing fifteen years later. He needs to be 
corrected by the letters and despatches of the day, which prove 
that the Reformer's memory, though picturesque, had, in the 
course of fifteen years, become untrustworthy. He is the chief 
source of the usual version of Solway Moss. 



108 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

the castle. In a day or two, on the last of July, the 
garrison surrendered. Knox, with many of his asso- 
ciates, was placed in the galleys and carried captive to 
France. On one occasion the galleys were within sight 
of St. Andrews, and the Reformer predicted (so he says) 
that he would again preach there — as he did, to some 
purpose. 

But the castle had not fallen before the English 
party among the nobles had arranged to betray Scot- 
tish fortresses to England; and to lead 2000 Scottish 
" favourers of the Word of God " to fight under the 
flag of St. George against their country. An English 
host of 15,000 was assembled, and marched north ac- 
companied by a fleet. On the 9th of September 1547 
the leader, Somerset, found the Scottish army occupy- 
ing a well-chosen position near Musselburgh: on their 
left lay the Firth, on their front a marsh and the river 
Esk. But next day the Scots, as when Cromwell de- 
feated them at Dunbar, left an impregnable position 
in their eagerness to cut Somerset off from his ships, 
and were routed with great slaughter in the battle of 
Pinkie. Somerset made no great use of his victory : he 
took and held Broughty Castle on Tay, fortified Inch- 
colme in the Firth of Forth, and devastated Holyrood. 
Mischief he did, to little purpose. 

The child queen was conveyed to an isle in the Loch 
of Menteith, where she was safe, and her marriage with 
the Dauphin was negotiated. In June 1548 a large 
French force under the Sieur d'Esse arrived, and later 
captured Haddington, held by the English, while, de- 
spite some Franco-Scottish successes in the field, Mary 



MARY OF GUISE AS REGENT 109 

was sent with her Four Maries to France, where she 
landed in August, the only passenger who had not 
been sea-sick ! By April 1550 the English made peace, 
abandoning all their holds in Scotland. The great 
essential prize, the child queen, had escaped them. 

The clergy burned a martyr in 1550; in 1549 they 
had passed measures for their own reformation : too late 
and futile was the scheme. Early in 1549 Knox re- 
turned from France to England, where he was minister 
at Berwick and at Newcastle, a chaplain of the child 
Edward VI., and a successful opponent of Cranmer as 
regards kneeling at the celebration of the Holy Com- 
munion. He refused a bishopric, foreseeing trouble 
under Mary Tudor, from whom he fled to the Continent. 
In 1550-51 Mary of Guise, visiting France, procured 
for Arran the Duchy of Chatelherault, and for his 
eldest son the command of the Scottish Archer Guard, 
and, by way of exchange, in 1554 took from him the 
Regency, surrounding herself with French advisers, 
notably De Roubay and d'Oysel. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

REGENCY OF MARY OF GUISE 

In England, on the death of Edward VI., Catholicism 
rejoiced in the accession of Mary Tudor, which, by 
driving Scottish Protestant refugees back into their 
own country, strengthened there the party of revolt 
against the Church, while the queen-mother's prefer- 
ence of French over Scottish advisers, and her small 
force of trained French soldiers in garrisons, caused 
even the Scottish Catholics to hold France in fear and 
suspicion. The French counsellors (1556) urged in- 
creased taxation for purposes of national defence 
against England ; but the nobles would rather be invaded 
every year than tolerate a standing army in place of 
their old irregular feudal levies. Their own independ- 
ence of the Crown was dearer to the nobles and gentry 
than safety from their old enemy. They might have 
reflected that a standing army of Scots, officered by 
themselves, would be a check on the French soldiers in 
garrison. 

Perplexed and opposed by the great clan of Hamil- 
ton, whose chief, Arran, was nearest heir to the crown, 
Mary of Guise was now anxious to conciliate the Prot- 
estants, and there was a " blink," as the Covenanters 
later said, — a lull in persecution. 

After Knox's release from the French galleys in 
1549, he had played, as we saw, a considerable part in 

110 



KNOX REVISITS SCOTLAND (1555) m 

the affairs of the English Church, and in the making 
of the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI., but had 
fled abroad on the accession of Mary Tudor. From 
Dieppe he had sent a tract to England, praying God 
to stir up some Phineas or Jehu to shed the blood 
of " abominable idolaters," — obviously of Mary of 
England and Philip of Spain. On earlier occasions 
he had followed Calvin in deprecating such sanguinary 
measures. The Scot, after a stormy period of quarrels 
with Anglican refugees in Frankfort, moved to Geneva, 
where the city was under a despotism of preachers 
and of Calvin. Here Knox found the model of Church 
government which, in a form if possible more extreme, 
he later planted in Scotland. 

There, in 1549-52, the Church, under Archbishop 
Hamilton, Beaton's successor, had been confessing her 
iniquities in Provincial Councils, and attempting to 
purify herself on the lines of the tolerant and charitable 
Catechism issued by the Archbishop in 1552. Appar- 
ently a modus vivendi was being sought, and Protestants 
were inclined to think that they might be " occasional 
conformists " and attend Mass without being false to 
their convictions. But in this brief lull Knox came over 
to Scotland at the end of harvest, in 1555. On this 
point of occasional conformity he was fixed. The Mass 
was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a 
capital offence. Idolaters must be converted or exter- 
minated ; they were no better than Amalekites. 

This was the central rock of Knox's position: toler- 
ance was impossible. He remained in Scotland, preach- 
ing and administering the Sacrament in the Genevan 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

way, till June 1556. He associated with the future 
leaders of the religious revolution: Erskine of Dun, 
Lord Lome (in 1558, fifth Earl of Argyll), James 
Stewart, bastard of James V., and lay Prior of St. 
Andrews, and of Macon in France ; and the Earl of 
Glencairn. William Maitland of Lethington, " the 
flower of the wits of Scotland," was to Knox a less 
congenial acquaintance. Not till May 1556 was Knox 
summoned to trial in Edinburgh, but he had a strong 
backing of the laity, as was the custom in Scr bland, 
where justice was overawed by armed gatherings, and 
no trial was held. By July 1556 he was in France, 
on his way to Geneva. 

The fruits of Knox's labours followed him, in March 
1557, in the shape of a letter, signed by Glencairn, 
Lome, Lord Erskine, and James Stewart, Mary's bas- 
tard brother. They prayed Knox to return. They 
were ready " to jeopardy lives and goods in the for- 
ward setting of the glory of God." This has all the 
air of risking civil war. Knox was not eager. It was 
October before he reached Dieppe on his homeward 
way. Meanwhile there had been hostilities between 
England and Scotland (as ally of France, then at odds 
with Philip of Spain, consort King of England), and 
there were Protestant tumults in Edinburgh. Knox 
had scruples as to raising civil war by preaching at 
home. The Scottish nobles had no zeal for the English 
war; but Knox, who received at Dieppe discouraging 
letters from unknown correspondents, did not cross the 
sea. He remained at Dieppe, preaching, till the spring 
of 1558. 



MARY WEDS THE DAUPHIN (1558) 113 

In Knox's absence even James Stewart and Erskine 
of Dun agreed to hurry on the marriage between Mary, 
Queen of Scots, and Francis, Dauphin of France, a 
feeble boy, younger than herself. Their faces are 
pitiably young as represented in their coronation 
medal. 

While negotiations for the marriage were begun in 
October, on December 3, 1557, a godly " band " or 
covenant for mutual aid was signed by Argyll (then 
near his death, in 1558) ; his son, Lome ; the Earl of 
Morton (son of the traitor, Sir George Douglas) ; Glen- 
cairn; and Erskine of Dun, one of the commissioners 
who were to visit France for the royal marriage. They 
vow to risk their lives against " the Congregation of 
Satan " (the Church), and in defence of faithful Prot- 
estant preachers. They will establish " the blessed 
Word of God and His Congregation," and henceforth 
the Protestant party was commonly styled " The 
Congregation." 

Parliament (November 29, 1557) had accepted the 
French marriage, all the ancient liberties of Scotland 
being secured, and the right to the throne, if Mary 
died without issue, being confirmed to the House of 
Hamilton, not to the Dauphin. The marriage-contract 
(April 19, 1558) did ratify these just demands ; but, on 
April 4, Mary had been induced to sign them all away 
to France, leaving Scotland and her own claims to the 
English crown to the French king. 

The marriage was celebrated on April 24, 1558. In 
that week the last Protestant martyr, Walter Milne, 
an aged priest and a married man, was burned for 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

heresy at St. Andrews. This only increased the zeal of 
the Congregation. 

Among the Protestant preachers then in Scotland, of 
whom Willock, an Englishman, seems to have been the 
most reasonable, a certain Paul Methuen, a baker, was 
prominent. He had been summoned (July 28) to stand 
his trial for heresy, but his backing of friends was 
considerable, and they came before Mary of Guise in 
armour and with a bullying demeanour. She tried to 
temporise, and on September 3 a great riot broke out 
in Edinburgh, the image of St. Giles was broken, and 
the mob violently assaulted a procession of priests. The 
country was seething with discontent, and the death of 
Mary Tudor (November 17, 1558), with the accession 
of the Protestant Elizabeth, encouraged the Congrega- 
tion. Mary of Guise made large concessions : only she 
desired that there should be no public meetings in the 
capital. On January 1, 1559, church doors were 
placarded with " The Beggars' Warning." The Beg- 
gars (really the Brethren in their name) claimed the 
wealth of the religious orders. Threats were pro- 
nounced, revolution was menaced at a given date, Whit- 
sunday, and the threats were fulfilled. 

All this was the result of a plan, not of accident. 
Mary of Guise was intending to visit France, not long- 
ing to burn heretics. But she fell into the worst of 
health, and her recovery was doubted, in April 1559. 
Willock and Methuen had been summoned to trial 
(February 2, 1559), for their preachings were always 
apt to lead to violence on the part of their hearers. 
The summons was again postponed in deference to re- 



OUTBREAK AT PERTH (1559) 115 

newed menaces : a Convention had met at Edinburgh to 
seek for some remedy, and the last Provincial Council 
of the Scottish Church (March 1559) had considered 
vainly some proposals by moderate Catholics for in- 
ternal reform. 1 

Again the preachers were summoned to Stirling for 
May 10, but just a week earlier Knox arrived in Scot- 
land. The leader of the French Protestant preachers, 
Morel, expressed to Calvin his fear that Knox " may 
fill Scotland with his madness." Now was his oppor- 
tunity : the Regent was weak and ill ; the Congregation 
was in great force; England was at least not unfa- 
vourable to its cause. From Dundee Knox marched 
with many gentlemen — unarmed, he says — accompany- 
ing the preachers to Perth: Erskine of Dun went as 
an envoy to the Regent at Stirling; she is accused by 
Knox of treacherous dealing (other contemporary 
Protestant evidence says nothing of treachery) ; at all 
events, on May 10 the preachers were outlawed for 
non-appearance to stand their trial. The Brethren, 
" the whole multitude with their preachers," says Knox, 
who were in Perth were infuriated, and, after a ser- 
mon from the Reformer, wrecked the church, sacked the 
monasteries, and, says Knox, denounced death against 
any priest who celebrated Mass (a circumstance 
usually ignored by our historians), at the same time 
protesting, " We require nothing but liberty of 
conscience " I 

1 The dates and sequence of events are perplexing. In ' John 
Knox and the Reformation' (pp. 86-95) I have shown the 
difficulties. 



116 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

On May 31 a composition was made between the 
Regent and the insurgents, whom Argyll and James 
Stewart promised to join if the Regent broke the con- 
ditions. Henceforth the pretext that she had broken 
faith was made whenever it seemed convenient, while 
the Congregation permitted itself a godly liberty in 
construing the terms of treaties. A " band " was 
signed for " the destruction of idolatry " by Argyll, 
James Stewart, Glencairn, and others; and the Breth- 
ren scattered from Perth, breaking down altars and 
" idols " on their way home. Mary of Guise had prom- 
ised not t® leave a French garrison in Perth. She 
did leave some Scots in French pay, and on this slim 
pretext of her treachery, Argyll and James Stewart 
proclaimed the Regent perfidious, deserted her cause, 
and joined the crusade against " idolatry." 



NOTE 

It is far from my purpose to represent Mary of Guise as a 
kind of stainless Una with a milk-white lamb. I am apt to 
believe that she caused to be forged a letter, which she attributed 
to Arran. See my 'John Knox and the Reformation,* pp. 280, 
281, where the evidence is discussed. But the critical student 
of Knox's chapters on these events, generally accepted as his- 
torical evidence, cannot but perceive his personal hatred of Mary 
of Guise, whether shown in thinly veiled hints that Cardinal 
Beaton was her paramour; or in charges of treacherous breach 
of promise, which rest primarily on his word. Again, that 
"the Brethren" wrecked the religious houses of Perth is what 
he reports to a lady, Mrs. Locke; that "the rascal multitude" 
was guilty is the tale he tells "to all Europe" in his History. 
I have done my best to compare Knox's stories with contemporary 



KNOX'S 'HISTORY' CONSIDERED 117 

documents, including his own letters. These documents throw a 
lurid light on his versions of events, as given in this part of his 
History, which is merely a partisan pamphlet of autumn 1559. 
The evidence is criticised in my 'John Knox and the Reforma- 
tion,' pp. 107-157 (1905). Unhappily the letter of Mary of Guise 
to Henri II., after the outbreak at Perth, is missing from the 
archives of France. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE GREAT PILLAGE 

The revolution was now under weigh, and as it had 
begun so it continued. There was practically no re- 
sistance by the Catholic nobility and gentry: in the 
Lowlands, apparently, almost all were of the new per- 
suasion. The Due de Chatelherault might hesitate 
while his son, the Protestant Earl of Arran, who had 
been in France as Captain of the Scots Guard, was 
escaping into Switzerland, and thence to England ; but, 
on Arran's arrival there, the Hamiltons saw their 
chance of succeeding to the crown in place of the Catho- 
lic Mary. The Regent had but a small body of pro- 
fessional French soldiers. But the other side could 
not keep their feudal levies in the field, and they could 
not coin the supplies of church plate which must have 
fallen into their hands, until they .had seized the Mint 
at Edinburgh, so money was scarce with them. It 
was plain to Knox and Kirkcaldy of Grange, and it 
soon became obvious to Maitland of Lethington, who, 
of course, forsook the Regent, that aid from England 
must be sought, — aid in money, and if possible in men 
and ships. 

Meanwhile the reformers dealt with the ecclesiastical 
buildings of St. Andrews as they had done at Perth, 
Knox urging them on by his sermons. We may pre- 
sume that the boys broke the windows and images with 

118 



ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS DESPOILED 119 

a sanctified joy. A mutilated head of the Redeemer 
has been found in a latrine of the monastic buildings. 
As Commendator, or lay Prior, James Stewart may 
have secured the golden sheath of the arm-bone of the 
Apostle, presented by Edward I., and the other precious 
things, the sacred plate of the Church in a fane which 
had been the Delphi of Scotland. Lethington appears 
to have obtained most of the portable property of St. 
Salvator's College except that beautiful monument of 
idolatry, the great silver mace presented by Kennedy, 
the Founder, work of a Parisian silversmith, in 1461 : 
this, with maces of rude native work, escaped the 
spoilers. The monastery of the Franciscans is now 
levelled with the earth; of the Dominicans' chapel a 
small fragment remains. Of the residential part of the 
abbey a house was left : when the lead had been stripped 
from the roof of the church it became a quarry. 

" All churchmen's goods were spoiled and reft from 
them . . . for every man for the most part that could 
get anything pertaining to any churchmen thought the 
same well-won gear," says a contemporary Diary. Ar- 
ran himself, when he arrived in Scotland, robbed a 
priest of all that he had, for which Chatelherault made 
compensation. 

By the middle of June the Regent was compelled to 
remove almost all her French soldiers out of Fife. 
Perth was evacuated. The abbey of Scone and the 
palace were sacked. The Congregation entered Edin- 
burgh: they seem to have found the monasteries al- 
ready swept bare, but they seized Holyrood, and the 
stamps at the Mint. The Regent proclaimed that this 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

was flat rebellion, and that the rebels were intriguing 
with England. 

Knox denied it, in the first part of his History (in 
origin a contemporary tract written in the autumn), 
but the charge was true, and Knox and Kirkcaldy were, 
since June, the negotiators. Already his party were 
offering Arran (the heir of the crown after Mary) as 
a husband for Elizabeth, who saw him but rejected his 
suit. Arran's father, Chatelherault, later openly de- 
serted the Regent (July 1). The death of Henri II., 
wounded in a tournament, did not accelerate the arrival 
of French reinforcements for the Regent. The weaker 
Brethren, however, waxed weary ; money was scarce, 
and on July 24, the Congregation evacuated Edinburgh 
and Leith, after a treaty which they misrepresented, 
broke, and accused the Regent of breaking. 1 

Knox visited England, about August 1, but felt dis- 
satisfied with his qualification for diplomacy. Nothing, 
so far, was gained from Elizabeth, save a secret supply 
of £3000. On the other hand, fresh French forces 
arrived at Leith: the place was fortified; the Regent 
was again accused of perfidy by the perfidious ; and on 
October 21 the Congregation proclaimed her deposition 
on the alleged authority of her daughter, now Queen of 
France, whose seal they forged and used in their docu- 
ments. One Cokky was the forger; he saw Arran use 
the seal on public papers. 2 Cokky had made a die 

1 The details of these proceedings and the evidence for them 
may be found in the author's book, * John Knox and the Reforma- 
tion,' pp. 135-141. Cf. also my * History of Scotland,' ii. 58-60. 

8 See * Affaires ^trangeres; Angleterre,' xv. 131-153. MS. 



LETHINGTON'S WILINESS 121 

for the coins of the Congregation — a crown of thorns, 
with the words Verbum Dei. Leith, manned by French 
soldiers, was, till in the summer of 1560 it surrendered 
to the Congregation and their English allies, the centre 
of Catholic resistance. 

In November the Congregation, after a severe defeat, 
fled in grief from Edinburgh to Stirling, where Knox 
reanimated them, and they sent Lethington to England 
to crave assistance. Lethington, who had been in the 
service of the Regent, is henceforth the central figure of 
every intrigue. Witty, eloquent, subtle, he was indis- 
pensable, and he had one great ruling motive, to unite 
the crowns and peoples of England and Scotland. Un- 
fortunately he loved the crafty exercise of his dominion 
over men's minds for its own sake, and when, in some 
inscrutable way, he entered the clumsy plot to murder 
Darnley, and knew that Mary could prove his guilt, 
his shiftings and changes puzzle historians. In Scot- 
land he was called Michael Wily, that is Machiavelli, 
and " the necessary evil." 

In his mission to England Lethington was successful. 
By December 21, the English diplomatist, Sadleyr, in- 
formed Arran that a fleet was on its way to aid the 
Congregation, who were sacking Paisley Abbey, and 
issuing proclamations in the names of Francis and 
Mary. The fleet arrived while the French were about 
to seize St. Andrews (January 23, 1560), and the 
French plans were ruined. The Regent, who was dying, 
found shelter in Edinburgh Castle, which stood neutral. 
On February 27, 1560, at Berwick, the Congregation 
entered into a regular league with England, Elizabeth 



122 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

appearing as Protectress of Scotland, while the mar- 
riage of Mary and Francis endured. 

Meanwhile, owing to the Huguenot disturbances in 
France (such as the Tumult of Amboise, directed 
against the lives of Mary's uncles, the Cardinal and 
Due de Guise), Mary and Francis could not help the 
Regent, and Huntly, a Catholic, presently, as if in 
fear of the western clans, joined the Congregation. 
Mary of Guise had found the great northern chief 
treacherous, and had disgraced him, and untrust- 
worthy he continued to be. On May 7 the garrison of 
Leith defeated with heavy loss an Anglo-Scottish at- 
tack on the walls; but on June 16 the Regent made 
a good end, in peace with all men. She saw Chatel- 
herault, James Stewart, and the Earl Marischal; she 
listened patiently to the preacher Willock; she bade 
farewell to all, and died, a notable woman, crushed by 
an impossible task. The garrison of Leith, meanwhile, 
was starving on rats and horseflesh; negotiations be- 
gan, and ended in the Treaty of Edinburgh (July 
6, 1560). 

This treaty, as between Mary, Queen of France and 
Scotland, on one hand, and England on the other, was 
never ratified by Mary Stuart: she appears to have 
thought that one clause implied her abandonment of 
all her claims to the English succession, typified by 
her quartering of the royal English arms on her own 
shield. Thus there never was nor could be amity be- 
tween her and her sister and her foe, Elizabeth, who 
was justly aggrieved by her assumption of the English 
arms, while Elizabeth quartered the arms of France. 



THE CONFESSION OF FAITH 123 

Again, the ratification of the treaty as regarded 
Mary's rebels depended on their fulfilling certain 
clauses which, in fact, they instantly violated. 

Preachers were planted in the larger towns, some of 
which had already secured their services; Knox took 
Edinburgh. " Superintendents " — by no means bishops 
— were appointed, an order which soon ceased to exist 
in the Kirk: their duties were to wander about in their 
provinces, superintending and preaching. By request 
of the Convention (which was crowded by persons not 
used to attend), some preachers drew up, in four days, 
a Confession of Faith, on the lines of Calvin's rule at 
Geneva: this was approved and passed on August 17. 
The makers of the document profess their readiness 
to satisfy any critic of any point " from the mouth of 
God " (out of the Bible), but the pace was so good 
that either no criticism was offered or it was very rap- 
idly " satisfied." On August 24 four acts were passed 
in which the authority of " The Bishop of Rome " was 
repudiated. All previous legislation, not consistent 
with the new Confession, was rescinded. Against 
celebrants and attendants of the Mass were threatened 
(1) confiscation and corporal punishment; (£) exile; 
and (3) for the third offence, Death. The death sen- 
tence is not known to have been carried out in more than 
one or two cases. (Prof. Hume Brown writes that " the 
penalties attached to the breach of these enactments " 
(namely, the abjuration of papal jurisdiction, the con- 
demnation of all practices and doctrines contrary to 
the new creed, and of the celebration of Mass in Scot- 
land) " were those approved and sanctioned -by the 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

example of every country in Christendom." But not, 
surely, for the same offences, such as " the saying or 
hearing of Mass "? — ' History of Scotland,' ii. 71, 72: 
1902.) Suits in ecclesiastical were removed into secu- 
lar courts (August 29). 

In the Confession the theology was that of Calvin. 
Civil rulers were admitted to be of divine institution ; 
their duty is to " suppress idolatry," and they are not 
to be resisted " when doing that which pertains to their 
charge." But a Catholic ruler, like Mary, or a tolerant 
ruler, as James VI. would fain have been, apparently 
may be resisted for his tolerance. Resisted James was, 
as we shall see, whenever he attempted to be lenient to 
Catholics. 

The Book of Discipline, by Knox and other preach- 
ers, never was ratified by the Estates, as the Confession 
of Faith had been. It made admirable provisions for 
the payment of preachers and teachers, for the uni- 
versities, and for the poor; but somebody, probably 
Lethington, spoke of the proposals as " devout imagi- 
nations." The Book of Discipline approved of what 
was later accepted by the General Assembly, The Book 
of Common Order in Public Worship. This book was 
not a stereotyped Liturgy, but it was a kind of guide 
to the ministers in public prayers: the minister may 
repeat the prayers, or " say something like in effect." 
On the whole, he prayed " as the Spirit moved him," 
and he really seems to have been regarded as inspired ; 
his prayers were frequently political addresses. To si- 
lence these the infatuated policy of Charles I. thrust the 
Laudian Liturgy on the nation. 



THE KIRK 125 

The preachers were to be chosen by popular election, 
after examination in knowledge and as to morals. 
There was to be no ordination " by laying on of hands." 
" Seeing the miracle is ceased, the using of the cere- 
mony we deem not necessary " ; but, if the preachers 
were inspired, the miracle had not ceased, and the cere- 
mony was soon reinstated. Contrary to Genevan prac- 
tice, such festivals as Christmas and Easter were abol- 
ished. The Scottish Sabbath was established in great 
majesty. One " rag of Rome " was retained, clerical 
excommunication — the Sword of Church Discipline. It 
was the cutting off from Christ of the excommunicated, 
who were handed over to the devil, and it was attended 
by civil penalties equivalent to universal boycotting, 
practical outlawry, and followed by hell fire : " which 
sentence, lawfully pronounced on earth, is ratified in 
heaven." The strength of the preachers lay in this 
terrible weapon, borrowed from the armoury of Rome. 

Private morals were watched by the elders, and 
offenders were judged in kirk-sessions. Witchcraft, 
Sabbath desecration, and sexual laxities were the most 
prominent and popular sins. The mainstay of the 
system is the idea that the Bible is literally inspired; 
that the preachers are the perhaps inspired interpreters 
of the Bible, and that the country must imitate the 
old Hebrew persecution of " idolaters," that is, mainly 
Catholics. All this meant a theocracy of preachers 
elected by the populace, and governing the nation by 
their General Assembly in which nobles and other lay- 
men sat as elders. These peculiar institutions came 
hot from Geneva, and the country could never have 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

been blessed with them, as we have observed, but for 
that instrument of Providence, Cardinal Beaton. Had 
he disposed of himself and Scotland to Henry VIII. 
(who would not have tolerated Presbyterian claims for 
an hour), Scotland would not have received the Genevan 
discipline, and the Kirk would have groaned under 
bishops. 

The Reformation supplied Scotland with a class of 
preachers who were pure in their lives, who were not 
accessible to bribes (a virtue in which they stood almost 
alone), who were firm in their faith, and soon had learn- 
ing enough to defend it ; who were constant in their 
parish work, and of whom many were credited with 
prophetic and healing powers. They could exorcise 
ghosts from houses, devils from men possessed. 

The baldness of the services, the stern nature of the 
creed, were congenial to the people. The drawbacks 
were the intolerance, the spiritual pretensions of the 
preachers to interference in secular affairs, and the 
superstition which credited men like Knox, and later, 
Bruce, with the gifts of prophecy and other miraculous 
workings, and insisted on the burning of witches and 
warlocks, whereof the writer knows scarcely an instance 
in Scotland before the Reformation. 

The pulpit may be said to have discharged the func- 
tions of the press (a press which was all on one side). 
When, in 1562, Ninian Winzet, a Catholic priest and 
ex-schoolmaster, was printing a controversial tractate 
addressed to Knox, the magistrates seized the manu- 
script at the printer's house, and the author was fortu- 
nate in making his escape. The nature of the Confession 



CHARACTER OF MARY 127 

of Faith, and of the claims of the ministers to inter- 
fere in secular affairs, with divine authority, was cer- 
tain to cause war between the Crown and the Kirk. 
That war, whether open and armed, or a conflict in 
words, endured till, in 1690, the weapon of excommuni- 
cation with civil penalties was quietly removed from 
the ecclesiastical armoury. Such were the results of 
a religious revolution hurriedly effected. 

The Lords now sent an embassy to Elizabeth about 
the time of the death of Amy Robsart, and while Amy's 
husband, Robert Dudley, was very dear to the English 
queen, to urge, vainly, her marriage with Arran. On 
December 5, 1560, Francis II. died, leaving Mary 
Stuart a mere dowager; while her kinsmen, the Guises, 
lost power, which fell into the unfriendly hands of 
Catherine de Medici. At once Arran, who made Knox 
his confidant, began to woo Mary with a letter and 
a ring. Her reply perhaps increased his tendency to 
madness, which soon became open and incurable by the 
science of the day. 

Here we must try to sketch Mary, la Reine blanche, 
in her white royal mourning. Her education had been 
that of the learned ladies of her age; she had some 
knowledge of Latin, and knew French and Italian. 
French was to her almost a mother-tongue, but not 
quite; she had retained her Scots, and her attempts 
to write English are, at first, curiously imperfect. She 
had lived in a profligate Court, but she was not the 
wanton of hostile slanders. She had all the guile of 
statesmanship, said the English envoy, Randolph; and 
she long exercised great patience under daily in- 



128 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

suits to her religion and provocations from Elizabeth. 
She was generous, pitiful, naturally honourable, and 
most loyal to all who served her. But her passions, 
whether of love or hate, once roused, were tyrannical. 
In person she was tall, like her mother, and graceful, 
with beautiful hands. Her face was somewhat long, the 
nose long and straight, the lips and chin beautifully 
moulded, the eyebrows very slender, the eyes of a red- 
dish brown, long and narrow. Her hair was russet, 
drawn back from a lofty brow ; her smile was captivat- 
ing; she was rather fascinating than beautiful; her 
courage and her love of courage in others were uni- 
versally confessed. 1 

In January 1561 the Estates of Scotland ordered 
James Stuart, Mary's natural brother, to visit her in 
France. In spring she met him, and an envoy from 
Huntly (Lesley, later Bishop of Ross), who represented 
the Catholic party, and asked Mary to land in Aber- 
deen, and march south at the head of the Gordons and 
certain northern clans. The proposal came from noble- 
men of Perthshire, Angus, and the north, whose forces 
could not have faced a Lowland army. Mary, who had 
learned from her mother that Huntly was treacherous, 
preferred to take her chance with her brother, who, 
returning by way of England, moved Elizabeth to rec- 
ognise the Scottish queen as her heir. But Elizabeth 
would never settle the succession, and, as Mary refused 
to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, forbade her to travel 
home through England. 

1 Mary's one good portrait is that owned by Lord Leven and 
Melville. 



CHAPTER XX 

MARY IN SCOTLAND 

On August 19, 1561, in a dense fog, and almost un- 
expected and unwelcomed, Mary landed in Leith. She 
had told the English ambassador to France that she 
would constrain none of her subjects in religion, and 
hoped to be unconstrained. Her first act was to par- 
don some artisans, under censure for a Robin Hood 
frolic: her motive, says Knox, was her knowledge that 
they had acted " in despite of religion." 

The Lord James had stipulated that she might have 
her Mass in her private chapel. Her priest was mobbed 
by the godly; on the following Sunday, Knox de- 
nounced her Mass, and had his first interview with her 
later. In vain she spoke of her conscience ; Knox said 
that it was unenlightened. Lethington wished that he 
would " deal more gently with a young princess un- 
persuaded." There were three or four later interviews, 
but Knox, strengthened by a marriage with a girl of 
sixteen, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a Stewart, was 
proof against the queen's fascination. In spite of in- 
sults to her faith offered even at pageants of welcome, 
Mary kept her temper, and, for long, cast in her lot 
with Lethington and her brother, whose hope was to 
reconcile her with Elizabeth. 

The Court was gay with riotous young French no- 

129 



130 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

bles, well mated with Bothwell, who, though a Prot- 
estant, had sided with Mary of Guise during the brawls 
of 1559. He was now a man of twenty-seven, profligate, 
reckless, a conqueror of hearts, a speaker of French, a 
ruffian, and well educated. 

In December it was arranged that the old bishops 
and other high clerics should keep two-thirds of their 
revenues, the other third to be divided between the 
preachers and the queen, " between God and the devil," 
says Knox. Thenceforth there was a rift between the 
preachers and the politicians, Lethington and Lord 
James (now Earl of Mar), on whom Mary leaned. The 
new Earl of Mar was furtively created Earl of 
Murray and enjoyed the gift after the overthrow 
of Huntly. 

In January 1562 Mary asked for an interview with 
Elizabeth. Certainly Lethington hoped that Elizabeth 
" would be able to do much with Mary in religion," 
meaning that, if Mary's claims to succeed Elizabeth 
were granted, she might turn Anglican. The request 
for a meeting, dallied with but never granted, occu- 
pied diplomatists, while, at home, Arran (March 31) 
accused Bothwell of training him into a plot to seize 
Mary's person. Arran probably told truth, but he 
now went mad; Bothwell was imprisoned in the castle 
till his escape to England in August 1562. Lethington, 
in June, was negotiating for Mary's interview with 
Elizabeth; Knox bitterly opposed it; the preachers 
feared that the queen would turn Anglican, and bishops 
might be let loose in Scotland. The masques for 
Mary's reception were actually being organised, when, 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 131 

in July, Elizabeth, on the pretext of persecutions by 
the Guises in France, broke off the negotiations. 

The rest of the year was occupied by an affair of 
which the origins are obscure. Mary, with her brother 
and Lethington, made a progress into the north, were 
affronted by and attacked Huntly, who died suddenly 
(October 28) at the fight of Corrichie; seized a son of 
his, who was executed (November 2), and spoiled his 
castle, which contained much of the property of the 
Church of Aberdeen. Mary's motives for destroying 
her chief Catholic subject are not certainly known. 
Her brother, Lord James, in February made Earl of 
Mar, now received the lands and title of Earl of 
Murray. At some date in this year Knox preached 
against Mary because she gave a dance. He chose to 
connect her dance with some attack on the Huguenots 
in France. According to ' The Book of Discipline * he 
should have remonstrated privately, as Mary told him. 
The dates are inextricable. ( See my ' John Knox and 
the Reformation,' pp. 215-218.) Till the spring of 
1565 the main business was the question of the queen's 
marriage. This continued to divide the ruling Prot- 
estant nobles from the preachers. Knox dreaded an 
alliance with Spain, a marriage with Don Carlos. But 
Elizabeth, to waste time, offered Mary the hand of 
Lord Robert Dudley (Leicester), and, strange as it 
appears, Mary would probably have accepted him, as 
late as 1565, for Elizabeth let it be understood that 
to marry a Catholic prince would be the signal for 
war, while Mary hoped that, if she accepted Eliza- 
beth's favourite, Dudley, she would be acknowledged as 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Elizabeth's heiress. Mary was young, and showed lit- 
tle knowledge of the nature of woman. 

In 1563 came the affair of Chatelard, a French 
minor poet, a Huguenot apparently, who, whether in 
mere fatuity or to discredit Mary, hid himself under 
her bed at Holyrood, and again at Burntisland. Mary 
had listened to his rhymes, had danced with him, and 
smiled on him, but Chatelard went too far. He was 
decapitated in the market street of St. Andrews (Feb- 
ruary 22, 1563). It is clear, if we may trust Knox's 
account, singularly unlike Brantome's, that Chatelard 
was a Huguenot. 

About Easter priests were locked up in Ayrshire, the 
centre of Presbyterian fanaticism, for celebrating Mass. 
This was in accordance with law, and to soften Knox 
the girl queen tried her personal influence. He resisted 
" the devil " ; Mary yielded, and allowed Archbishop 
Hamilton and some fifty other clerics to be placed " in 
prison courteous." The Estates, which met on May 27 
for the first time since the queen landed, were mollified, 
but were as far as ever from passing the Book of 
Discipline. They did pass a law condemning 
witches to death, a source of unspeakable cruelties. 
Knox and Murray now ceased to be on terms till 
their common interests brought them together in 
1565. 

In June 1563 Elizabeth requested Mary to permit the 
return to Scotland of Lennox (the traitor to the na- 
tional cause and to Cardinal Beaton, and the rival of 
the Hamiltons for the succession to the thrones), ap- 
parently for the very purpose of entangling Mary in 



KNOX AND MARY 133 

a marriage with Lennox's son Darnley, and then thwart- 
ing it. (It was not Mary who asked Elizabeth to send 
Lennox.) Knox's favourite candidate was Lord Robert 
Dudley: despite his notorious character he sometimes 
favoured the English Puritans. When Holy rood had 
been invaded by a mob who, in Mary's absence in au- 
tumn 1563, broke up the Catholic attendance on Mass 
(such attendance, in Mary's absence, was illegal), and 
when both parties were summoned to trial, Knox called 
together the godly. The Council cleared him of the 
charge of making an unlawful convocation (they might 
want to make one, any day, themselves), and he was 
supported by the General Assembly. Similar conduct 
of the preachers thirty years later gave James VI. the 
opportunity to triumph over the Kirk. 

In June 1564 there was still discord between the 
Kirk and the Lords, and, in a long argument with 
Lethington, Knox maintained the right of the godly 
to imitate the slayings of idolaters by Phineas and 
Jehu : the doctrine bore blood-red fruits among the later 
Covenanters. Elizabeth, in May 1564, in vain asked 
Mary to withdraw the permission (previously asked for 
by her) to allow Lennox to visit Scotland and plead for 
the restoration of his lands. The objection to Lennox's 
appearance had come, through Randolph, from Knox. 
" You may cause us to take the Lord Darnley," wrote 
Kirkcaldy to Cecil, to stop Elizabeth's systems of de- 
lays ; and Sir James Melville, after going on a mission 
to Elizabeth, warned Mary that she would never part 
with her minion, now Earl of Leicester. 

Lennox, in autumn 1564, arrived and was restored 



134 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

to his estates, while Leicester and Cecil worked for the 
sending of his son Darnley to Scotland. Leicester had 
no desire to desert Elizabeth's Court and his chance of 
touching her maiden heart. 

The intrigues of Cecil, Leicester, and Elizabeth re- 
semble rather a chapter in a novel than a page in 
history. Elizabeth notoriously hated and, when she 
could, thwarted all marriages. She desired that Mary 
should never marry: a union with a Catholic prince 
she vetoed, threatening war; and Leicester she offered 
merely " to drive time." But Mary, evasively tempted 
by hints, later withdrawn, of her recognition as 
Elizabeth's successor, was, till the end of March 1565, 
encouraged by Randolph, the English ambassador at 
her Court, to remain in hope of wedding Leicester. 
Randolph himself was not in the secret of the English 
intrigue, which was to slip Darnley at Mary. He 
came (February 1565) : Cecil and Leicester had " used 
earnest means " to ensure his coming. On March 17 
Mary was informed that she would never be recognised 
as Elizabeth's successor till events should occur which 
never could occur. On receiving this news Mary wept ; 
she also was indignant at the long and humiliating 
series of Elizabeth's treacheries. Her patience broke 
down; she turned to Darnley, thereby, as the English 
intriguers designed, breaking up the concord of her 
nobles. To marry Darnley involved the feud of the 
Hamiltons, and the return of Murray (whom Darnley 
had offended), of Chatelherault, Argyll, and many 
other nobles to the party of Knox and the preachers. 
Leicester would have been welcome to Knox; Darnley 



MARY AND DARNLEY 135 

was a Catholic, if anything, and a weak passionate 
young fool. Mary, in the clash of interests, was a lost 
woman, as Randolph truly said, with sincere pity. Her 
long endurance, her attempts to " run the English 
course," were wasted. 

David Riccio, who came to Scotland as a musician 
in 1561, was now high in her and in Darnley's favour. 
Murray was accused of a conspiracy to seize Darnley 
and Lennox; the godly began to organise an armed 
force (June 1565); Mary summoned from exile Both- 
well, a man of the sword. On July 29th she married 
Darnley, and on August 6th Murray, who had refused 
to appear to answer the charges of treason brought 
against him, though a safe-conduct was offered, was 
outlawed and proclaimed a rebel, while Huntly's son, 
Lord George, was to be restored to his estates. Thus 
everything seemed to indicate that Mary had been 
exasperated into breaking with the party of modera- 
tion, the party of Murray and Lethington, and been 
driven into courses where her support, if any, must 
come from France and Rome. Yet she married with- 
out waiting for the necessary dispensation from the 
Pope. Her policy was henceforth influenced by her 
favour to Riccio, and by the jealous and arrogant tem- 
per of her husband. Mary well knew that Elizabeth 
had sent money to her rebels, whom she now pursued 
all through the south of Scotland ; they fled from Edin- 
burgh, where the valiant Brethren, brave enough in 
throwing stones at pilloried priests, refused to join 
them; and despite the feuds in her own camp, where 
Bothwell and Darnley were already on the worst terms, 



136 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Mary drove the rebel lords across the Border at Car- 
lisle on October 8. 

Mary seemed triumphant, but the men with her— 
Lethington, and Morton the Chancellor — were disaf- 
fected ; Darnley was mutinous : he thought himself neg- 
lected; he and his father resented Mary's leniency to 
Chatelherault, who had submitted and been sent to 
France; all parties hated Riccio. There was to be a 
Parliament early in March 1566. In February, Mary 
sent the Bishop of Dunblane to Rome to ask for a 
subsidy; she intended to reintroduce the Spiritual Es- 
tate into the House as electors of the Lords of the 
Articles, " tending to have done some good anent the 
restoring of the old religion." The nuncio who was 
to have brought the Pope's money later insisted that 
Mary should take the heads of Murray, Argyll, Mor- 
ton, and Lethington ! Whether she aimed at securing 
more than tolerance for Catholics is uncertain ; but the 
Parliament, in which the exiled Lords were to be for- 
feited, was never held. The other nobles would never 
permit such a measure. 

George Douglas, a stirring cadet of the great House, 
was exciting Darnley's jealousy of Riccio, but already 
Randolph (February 5, 1566) had written to Cecil that 
" the wisest were aiming at putting all in hazard " to 
restore the exiled Lords. The nobles, in the last resort, 
would all stand by each other : there was now a Douglas 
plot of the old sort to bring back the exiles ; and Darn- 
ley, with his jealous desire to murder Riccio, was but 
the cat's-paw to light the train and explode Mary and 
her Government. Ruthven, whom Mary had always 



MURDER OF RICCIO 137 

distrusted, came into the conspiracy. Through Ran- 
dolph all was known in England. " Bands " were drawn 
up, signed by Argyll (safe in his own hills), Murray, 
Glencairn, Rothes, Boyd, Ochiltree (the father of 
Knox's young wife), and Darnley. His name was put 
forward ; his rights and succession were secured against 
the Hamiltons ; Protestantism, too, was to be defended. 
Many Douglases, many of the Lothian gentry, were in 
the plot. Murray was to arrive from England as soon 
as Riccio had been slain and Mary had been seized. 

Randolph knew all and reported to Elizabeth's 
ministers. 

The plan worked with mechanical precision. On 
March 9 Morton and his company occupied Holyrood, 
going up the great staircase about eight at night; 
while Darnley and Ruthven, a dying man, entered the 
queen's supper-room by a privy stair. Morton's men 
burst in, Riccio was dragged forth, and died under 
forty daggers. Bothwell, Atholl, and Huntly, parti- 
sans of Mary, escaped from the palace; with them 
Mary managed to communicate on the morrow, when 
she also held talk with Murray, who had returned with 
the other exiles. She had worked on the fears and pas- 
sions of Darnley; by promises of amnesty the Lords 
were induced to withdraw their guards next day, and 
in the following night, by a secret passage, and through 
the tombs of kings, Mary and Darnley reached the 
horses brought by Arthur Erskine. 

It was a long dark ride to Dunbar, but there Mary 
was safe. She pardoned and won over Glencairn, whom 
she liked, and Rothes; Bothwell and Huntly joined her 



138 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

with a sufficient force, Ruthven and Morton fled to 
Berwick (Ruthven was to die in England), and Knox 
hastened into Kyle in Ayrshire. Darnley, who declared 
his own innocence and betrayed his accomplices, was 
now equally hated and despised by his late allies and 
by the queen and Murray, — indeed, by all men, chiefly 
by Morton and Argyll. Lethington was in hiding ; but 
he was indispensable, and in September was reconciled 
to Mary. 

On June 19, in Edinburgh Castle, she bore her child, 
later James VI. ; on her recovery Darnley was insolent, 
and was the more detested, while Bothwell was high in 
favour. In October most of the Lords signed, with 
Murray, a band for setting Darnley aside — not for his 
murder. He is said to have denounced Mary to Spain, 
France, and Rome for neglecting Catholic interests. In 
mid-October, Mary was seriously ill at Jedburgh, where 
Bothwell, wounded in an encounter with a Border reiver, 
was welcomed, while Darnley, coldly received, went to 
his father's house on the Forth. On her recovery Mary 
resided in the last days of November at Craigmillar 
Castle, near Edinburgh. Here Murray, Argyll, Both- 
well, Huntly, and Lethington held counsel with her as 
to Darnley. Lethington said that " a way would be 
found," a way that Parliament would approve, while 
Murray would "look through his fingers." Lennox 
believed that the plan was to arrest Darnley on some 
charge, and slay him if he resisted. 

At Stirling (December 17), when the young prince 
was baptised with Catholic rites, Darnley did not ap- 
pear; he sulked in his own rooms. A week later, the 



MURDER OF DARNLEY 139 

exiles guilty of Riccio's murder were recalled, among 
them Morton; and Darnley, finding all his enemies 
about to be united, went to Glasgow, where he fell ill. 
of smallpox. Mary offered a visit (she had had the 
malady as a child), and was rudely rebuffed (January 
1-13, 1567), but she was with him by January 21. 
From Glasgow, at this time, was written the long and 
fatal letter to Bothwell, which places Mary's guilt in 
luring Darnley to his death beyond doubt, if we accept 
the letters as authentic. 1 

Darnley was carried in a litter to the lonely house 
of Kirk-o'-Field, on the south wall of Edinburgh. Here 
Mary attended him in his sickness. On Sunday morn- 
ing, February 9, Murray left Edinburgh for Fife. In 
the night of Sunday 9-Monday 10, the house where 
Darnley lay was blown up by gunpowder, and he, with 
an attendant, was found dead in the garden: how he 
was slain is not known. 

That Bothwell, in accordance with a band signed by 
himself, Huntly, Argyll, and Lethington, and aided by 
some Border ruffians, laid and exploded the powder is 
certain. Morton was apprised by Lethington and Both- 
well of the plot, but refused to join it without Mary's 
written commission, which he did not obtain. Against 
the queen there is no trustworthy direct evidence (if we 
distrust her alleged letters to Bothwell), but her con- 

1 1 have no longer any personal doubt that Mary wrote the lost 
French original of this letter, usually numbered II. in the Casket 
Letters (see my paper, " The Casket Letters," in ' The Scottish 
Historical Review,' vol. v., No. 17, pp. 1-12). The arguments 
tending to suggest that parts of the letter are forged (see my 
'Mystery of Mary Stuart') are (I now believe) unavailing. 



140 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

duct in protecting and marrying Bothwell (who was 
really in love with his wife) shows that she did not dis- 
approve. The trial of Bothwell was a farce; Mary's 
abduction by him (April 24) and retreat with him 
to Dunbar was collusive. She married Bothwell on 
May 15. Her nobles, many of whom had signed a 
document urging her to marry Bothwell, rose against 
her; on June 15, 1567, she surrendered to them at 
Carberry Hill, while they, several of them deep in the 
murder plot, were not sorry to let Bothwell escape to 
Dunbar. After some piratical adventures, being pur- 
sued by Kirkcaldy he made his way to Denmark, where 
he died a prisoner. 

Mary, first carried to Edinburgh and there insulted 
by the populace, was next hurried to Lochleven Castle. 
Her alleged letters to Bothwell were betrayed to the 
Lords (June 21), probably through Sir James Balfour, 
who commanded in Edinburgh Castle. Perhaps Murray 
(who had left for France before the marriage to Both- 
well), perhaps fear of Elizabeth, or human pity, in- 
duced her captors, contrary to the counsel of Lething- 
ton, to spare her life, when she had signed her abdica- 
tion, while they crowned her infant son. Murray 
accepted the Regency; a Parliament in December es- 
tablished the Kirk ; acquitted themselves of rebellion ; 
and announced that they had proof of Mary's guilt in 
her own writing. Her romantic escape from Lochleven 
(May 2, 1568) gave her but an hour of freedom. De- 
feated on her march to Dumbarton Castle in the battle 
of Langside Hill, she lost heart and fled to the coast 
of Galloway; on May 16 crossed the Solway to Work- 



MARY'S CAPTIVITY. PARTIES IN SCOTLAND 141 

ington in Cumberland; and in a few days was Eliza- 
beth's prisoner in Carlisle Castle. 

Mary had hitherto been a convinced but not a very 
obedient daughter of the Church; for example, it ap- 
pears that she married Darnley before the arrival of 
the Pope's dispensation. At this moment Philip of 
Spain, the French envoy to Scotland, and the French 
Court had no faith in her innocence of Darnley's death ; 
and the Pope said " he knew not which of these ladies 
were the better " — Mary or Elizabeth. But from this 
time, while a captive in England, Mary was the centre 
of the hopes of English Catholics : in miniatures she 
appears as queen, quartering the English arms; she 
might further the ends of Spain, of France, of Rome, 
of English rebels, while her existence was a nightmare 
to the Protestants of Scotland and a peril to Elizabeth. 

After Mary's flight, Murray was, as has been said, 
Regent for the crowned baby James. In his council 
were the sensual, brutal, but vigorous Morton, with 
Mar, later himself Regent, a man of milder nature; 
Glencairn ; Ruthven, whom Mary detested — he had tried 
to make unwelcome love to hei* at Lochleven ; and " the 
necessary evil," Lethington. How a man so wily be- 
came a party to the murder of Darnley cannot be 
known: now he began to perceive that, if Mary were 
restored, as he believed that she would be, his only 
safety lay in securing her gratitude by secret services. 

On the other side were the Hamiltons with their 
ablest man, the Archbishop; the Border spears who 
were loyal to Bothwell; and two of the conspirators 
in the murder of Darnley, Argyll and Huntly; with 



142 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Fleming and Herries, who were much attached to Mary. 
The two parties, influenced by Elizabeth, did not now 
come to blows, but awaited the results of English in- 
quiries into Mary's guilt, and of Elizabeth's consequent 
action. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MINORITY OF JAMES VI 

" Let none of them escape " was Elizabeth's message 
to the gaolers of Mary and her companions at Carlisle. 
The unhappy queen prayed to see her in whose hospi- 
tality she had confided, or to be allowed to depart free. 
Elizabeth's policy was to lead her into consenting to 
reply to her subjects' accusations, and Mary drifted 
into the shuffling English inquiries at York in October, 
while she was lodged at Bolton Castle. Murray, George 
Buchanan, Lethington (now distrusted by Murray), 
and Morton produced, for Norfolk and other English 
Commissioners at York, copies, at least, of the incrimi- 
nating letters, which horrified the Duke of Norfolk. 
Yet, probably through the guile of Lethington, he 
changed his mind, and became a suitor for Mary's 
hand. He bade her refuse compromise, whereas com- 
promise was Lethington's hope: a full and free in- 
quiry would reveal his own guilt in Darnley's murder. 
The inquiry was shifted to London in December, Mary 
always being refused permission to appear and speak 
for herself; nay, she was not allowed even to see the 
letters which she was accused of having written. Her 
own Commissioners, Lord Herries and Bishop Lesley, 
who (as Mary knew in Herries's case) had no faith in 
her innocence, showed their want of confidence by pro- 
posing a compromise; this was not admitted. Morton 

143 



144 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

explained how he got the silver casket with the fatal 
letters, poems to Bothwell, and other papers ; they were 
read in translations, English and Scots; handwritings 
were compared, with no known result; evidence was 
heard, and Elizabeth, at last, merely decided — that she 
could not admit Mary to her presence. The English 
Lords agreed, " as the case does now stand," and pres- 
ently many of them were supporting Norfolk in his 
desire to marry the accused. Murray was told (Janu- 
ary 10, 1669) that he had proved nothing which could 
make Elizabeth " take any evil opinion of the queen, her 
good sister," nevertheless, Elizabeth would support him 
in his government of Scotland, while declining to recog- 
nise James VI. as king. 

All compromises Mary now utterly refused : she would 
live and die a queen. Henceforth the tangled intrigues 
cannot be disengaged in a work of this scope. Eliza- 
beth made various proposals to Mary, all involving her 
resignation as queen, or at least the suspension of her 
rights. Mary refused to listen ; her party in Scotland, 
led by Chatelherault, Herries, Huntly, and Argyll, did 
not venture to meet Murray and his party in war, and 
was counselled by Lethington, who still, in semblance, 
was of Murray's faction. Lethington was convinced 
that, sooner or later, Mary would return; and he did 
not wish to incur " her particular ill-will." He knew 
that Mary, as she said, " had that in black and white 
which would hang him " for the murder of Darnley. 
Now Lethington, Huntly, and Argyll were daunted, 
without stroke of sword, by Murray, and a Convention 
to discuss messages from Elizabeth and Mary met at 



MURRAY'S REGENCY 145 

Perth (July 25-28, 1569), and refused to allow the 
annulment of her marriage with Bothwell, though previ- 
ously they had insisted on its annulment. Presently 
Lethington was publicly accused of Darnley's murder 
by Crawford, a retainer of Lennox; was imprisoned, 
but was released by Kirkcaldy, commander in Edin- 
burgh Castle, which henceforth became the fortress of 
Mary's cause. 

The secret of Norfolk's plan to marry the Scottish 
queen now reached Elizabeth, making her more hostile 
to Mary; an insurrection in the north broke out; the 
Earl of Northumberland was driven into Scotland, was 
betrayed by Hecky Armstrong, and imprisoned at Loch 
Leven. Murray offered to hand over Northumberland 
to Elizabeth in exchange for Mary, her life to be guar- 
anteed by hostages, but, on January 23, 1570, Murray 
was shot by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh from a win- 
dow of a house in Linlithgow belonging to Archbishop 
Hamilton. The murderer escaped and joined his clan. 
During his brief regency, Murray had practically de- 
tached Huntly and Argyll from armed support of 
Mary's cause ; he had reduced the Border to temporary 
quiet by the free use of the gibbet; but he had not 
ventured to face Lethington's friends and bring him 
to trial: if he had, many others would have been com- 
promised. Murray was sly and avaricious, but, had 
he been legitimate, Scotland would have been well gov- 
erned under his vigour and caution. 



146 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



REGENCIES OF LENNOX, MAR, AND MORTON 

Randolph was now sent to Edinburgh to make peace 
between Mary's party and her foes impossible. He 
succeeded; the parties took up arms, and Sussex rav- 
aged the Border in revenge of a raid by Buccleuch. On 
May 14, Lennox, with an English force, was sent north : 
he devastated the Hamilton country ; was made Regent 
in July; and, in April 1571, had his revenge on Arch- 
bishop Hamilton, who was taken at the capture, by 
Crawford, of Dumbarton Castle, held by Lord Fleming, 
a post of vital moment to the Marians ; and was hanged 
at Stirling for complicity in the slaying of Murray. 
George Buchanan, Mary's old tutor, took advantage 
of these facts to publish quite a fresh account of Darn- 
ley's murder : the guilt of the Hamiltons now made that 
of Bothwell almost invisible! 

Edinburgh Castle, under Kirkcaldy with Lethington, 
held out; Knox reluctantly retired from Edinburgh to 
St. Andrews, where he was unpopular; but many of 
Mary's Lords deserted her, and though Lennox was shot 
(September 4) in an attack by Buccleuch and Ker of 
Ferniehirst on Stirling Castle, where he was holding 
a Parliament, he was succeeded by Mar, who was in- 
spired by Morton, a far stronger man. Presently the 
discovery of a plot between Mary, Norfolk, the English 
Catholics, and Spain, caused the Duke's execution, and 
more severe incarceration for Mary. 

In Scotland there was no chance of peace. Morton 



KNOX'S DEATH 147 

and his associates would not resign the lands of the 
Hamiltons, Lethington, and Kirkcaldy; Lethington 
knew that no amnesty would cover his guilt (though he 
had been nominally cleared) in the slaying of Darnley. 
One after the other of Mary's adherents made their 
peace; but Kirkcaldy and Lethington, in Edinburgh 
Castle, seemed safe while money and supplies held out. 
Knox had prophesied that Kirkcaldy would be hanged, 
but did not live to see his desire on his enemy, or 
on Mary, whom Elizabeth was about to hand over to 
Mar for instant execution. Knox died on November 
24, 1572; Mar, the Regent, had predeceased him by 
a month, leaving Morton in power. On May 28, 1573, 
the castle, attacked by guns and engineers from Eng- 
land, and cut off from water, struck its flag. The 
brave Kirkcaldy was hanged ; Lethington, who had long 
been moribund, escaped by an opportune death. The 
best soldier in Scotland and the most modern of her 
wits thus perished together. Concerning Knox, the 
opinions of his contemporaries differed. By his own 
account the leaders of his party deemed him " too ex- 
treme," and David Hume finds his ferocious delight 
in chronicling the murders of his foes " rather amus- 
ing," though sad! Quarrels of religion apart, Knox 
was a very good-hearted man; but where religion was 
concerned, his temper was remote from the Christian. 
He was a perfect agitator; he knew no tolerance, he 
spared no violence of language, and in diplomacy, when 
he diplomatised, he was no more scrupulous than an- 
other. Admirably vigorous and personal as literature, 



148 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

his History needs constant correction from documents. 
While to his secretary, Bannatyne, Knox seemed " a 
man of God, the light of Scotland, the mirror of godli- 
ness " ; many silent, douce folk among whom he laboured 
probably agreed in the allegation quoted by a diarist 
of the day, that Knox " had, as was alleged, the most 
part of the blame of all the sorrows of Scotland since 
the slaughter of the late Cardinal." 

In these years of violence, of " the Douglas wars " as 
they were called, two new tendencies may be observed. 
In January 1572, Morton induced an assembly of 
preachers at Leith to accept one of his clan, John 
Douglas, as Archbishop of St. Andrews: other bishops 
were appointed, called Tulchan bishops, from the 
tulchan or effigy of a calf employed to induce cows 
to yield their milk. The Church revenues were drawn 
through these unapostolic prelates, and came into the 
hands of the State, or at least of Morton. With these 
bishops, superintendents co-existed, but not for long. 
" The horns of the mitre " already began to peer above 
Presbyterian parity, and Morton is said to have re- 
marked that there would never be peace in Scotland 
till some preachers were hanged. In fact, there never 
was peace between Kirk and State till a deplorable 
number of preachers were hanged by the Governments 
of Charles II. and James II. 

A meeting of preachers in Edinburgh, after the 
Bartholomew massacre, in the autumn of 1572, de- 
manded that " it shall be lawful to all the subjects in 
this realm to invade them and every one of them to the 
death." The persons to be " invaded to the death " are 



MORTON APPOINTS BISHOPS 149 

recalcitrant Catholics, " grit or small," persisting in 
remaining in Scotland. 1 

The alarmed demands of the preachers were merely 
disregarded by the Privy Council. The ruling nobles, 
as Bishop Lesley says, would never gratify the 
preachers by carrying out the bloody penal Acts to 
their full extent against Catholics. There was no 
expulsion of all Catholics who dared to stay; no popu- 
lar massacre of all who declined to go. While Morton 
was in power he kept the preachers well in hand. He 
did worse: he starved the ministers, and thrust into 
the best livings wanton young gentlemen, of whom his 
kinsman, Archibald Douglas, an accomplice in Darn- 
ley's death and a trebly-dyed traitor, was the worst. 
But in 1575, the great Andrew Melville, an erudite 
scholar and a most determined person, began to protest 
against the very name of bishop in the Kirk; and in 
Adamson, made by Morton successor of John Douglas 
at St. Andrews, Melville found a mark and a victim. In 
economics, as an English diplomatist wrote to Cecil 
in November 1572, the country, despite the civil war, 
was thriving ; " the noblemen's great credit decaying, 
. . . the ministry and religion increaseth and the de- 
sire in them to prevent the practice of the Papists." 
The Englishman, in November, may refer to the peti- 
tion for persecution of October 20, 1572. 

The death of old Chatelherault now left the headship 
of the Hamiltons in more resolute hands ; Morton was 

1 1 can construe in no other sense the verbose " article." It may 
be read in Dr. Hay Fleming's 'Reformation in Scotland,' pp. 
449, 450, with sufficient commentary, pp. 450-453. 



150 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

confronted by opposition from Argyll, Atholl, Buchan, 
and Mar ; and Morton, in 1576-1577, made approaches 
to Mary. When the young James VI. came to his 
majority Morton's enemies would charge him with his 
guilty foreknowledge, through Bothwell, of Darnley's 
murder; so he made advances to Mary in hope of an 
amnesty. She suspected a trap and held aloof. 



CHAPTER XXII 

REIGN OF JAMES VI 

On March 4, 1578, a strong band of nobles, led by 
Argyll, presented so firm a front that Morton resigned 
the Regency; but in April 1578 a Douglas plot, backed 
by Angus and Morton, secured for the Earl of Mar the 
command of Stirling Castle and custody of the king ; in 
June 1578, after an appearance of civil war, Morton 
was as strong as ever. After dining with him, in April 
1579, Atholl, the main hope of Mary in Scotland, died 
suddenly, and suspicion of poison fell on his host. But 
Morton's ensuing success in expelling from Scotland 
the Hamilton leaders, Lord Claude and Arbroath, 
brought down his own doom. With them Sir James 
Balfour, deep in the secrets of Darnley's death, was 
exiled; he opened a correspondence with Mary, and 
presently procured for her " a contented revenge " on 
Morton. 

Two new characters in the long intrigue of vengeance 
now come on the scene. Both were Stewarts, and as 
such were concerned in the feud against the Hamiltons. 
The first was a cousin of Darnley, brought up in 
France, namely Esme Stuart d'Aubigny, son of John, 
a brother of Lennox. He had all the accomplishments 
likely to charm the boy king, now in his fourteenth 
year. 

James had hitherto been sternly educated by George 
151 



152 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Buchanan, more mildly by Peter Young. Buchanan 
and others had not quite succeeded in bringing him to 
scorn and hate his mother; Lady Mar, who was very 
kind to him, had exercised a gentler influence. The boy 
had read much, had hunted yet more eagerly, and had 
learned dissimulation and distrust, so natural to a child 
weak and ungainly in body and the conscious centre 
of the intrigues of violent men. A favourite of his was 
James Stewart, son of Lord Ochiltree, and brother-in- 
law of John Knox. Stewart was Captain of the Guard, 
a man of learning, who had been in foreign service ; he 
was skilled in all bodily feats, was ambitious, reckless, 
and resolute, and no friend of the preachers. The 
two Stewarts, d'Aubigny and the Captain, became 
allies. 

In a Parliament at Edinburgh (November 1579) 
their foes, the chiefs of the Hamiltons, were forfeited 
(they had been driven to seek shelter with Elizabeth), 
while d'Aubigny got their lands and the key of Scot- 
land, Dumbarton Castle, on the estuary of Clyde. The 
Kirk, regarding d'Aubigny, now Earl of Lennox, de- 
spite his Protestant professions, as a Papist, or an 
atheist, had little joy in Morton, who was denounced 
in a printed placard as guilty in Darnley's murder : Sir 
James Balfour could show his signature to the band to 
slay Darnley, signed by Huntly, Bothwell, Argyll, and 
Lethington. This was not true. Balfour knew much, 
was himself involved, but had not the band to show, 
or did not dare to produce it. 

To strengthen himself, Lennox was reconciled to the 
Kirk; to help the Hamiltons, Elizabeth sent Bowes to 



ARREST OF MORTON 153 

intrigue against Lennox, who was conspiring in Mary's 
interest, or in that of the Guises, or in his own. 
When Lennox succeeded in getting Dumbarton Castle, 
an open door for France, into his power, Bowes was 
urged by Elizabeth to join with Morton and " lay 
violent hands " on Lennox (August 31, 1580), but in 
a month Elizabeth cancelled her orders. 

Bowes was recalled; Morton, to whom English aid 
had been promised, was left to take his chances. 
Morton had warning from Lord Robert Stewart, Mary's 
half-brother, to fly the country, for Sir James Balfour, 
with his information, had landed. On December 31, 
1580, Captain Stewart accused Morton, in presence of 
the Council, of complicity in Darnley's murder. He 
was put in ward ; Elizabeth threatened war ; the preach- 
ers stormed against Lennox; a plot to murder him (a 
Douglas plot) and to seize James was discovered; Ran- 
dolph, who now represented Elizabeth, was fired at, and 
fled to Berwick; James Stewart was created Earl of 
Arran. In March 1581 the king and Lennox tried to 
propitiate the preachers by signing a negative Covenant 
against Rome, later made into a precedent for the fa- 
mous Covenant of 1638. On June 1 Morton was tried 
for guilty foreknowledge of Darnley's death. He was 
executed deservedly, and his head was stuck on a spike 
of the Tolbooth. The death of this avaricious, licen- 
tious, and resolute though unamiable Protestant was a 
heavy blow to the preachers and their party, and a 
crook in the lot of Elizabeth. 



154 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 



THE WAR OF KIRK AND KING 

The next twenty years were occupied with the strife 
of Kirk and king, whence arose " all the cumber of 
Scotland " till 1689. The preachers, led by the learned 
and turbulent Andrew Melville, had an ever-present 
terror of a restoration of Catholicism, the creed of a 
number of the nobles and of an unknown proportion 
of the people. The Reformation of 1559-1560 had 
been met by no Catholic resistance; we might suppose 
that the enormous majority of the people were Prot- 
estants, though the reverse has been asserted. But 
whatever the theological preferences of the country may 
have been, the justifiable fear of practical annexation 
by France had overpowered all other considerations. 
By 1580 it does not seem that there was any good rea- 
son for the Protestant nervousness, even if some north- 
ern counties and northern and Border peers preferred 
Catholicism. The king himself, a firm believer in his 
own theological learning and acuteness, was thoroughly 
Protestant. 

But the preachers would scarcely allow him to re- 
main a Protestant. Their claims, as formulated by 
Andrew Melville, were inconsistent with the right of 
the State to be mistress in her own house. In a Gen- 
eral Assembly at Glasgow (1581) Presbyteries were 
established; Episcopacy was condemned; the Kirk 
claimed for herself a separate jurisdiction, uninvadable 
by the State. Elizabeth, though for State reasons she 



JAMES'S ADVISERS 155 

usually backed the Presbyterians against James, also 
warned him of " a sect of dangerous consequence, which 
would have no king but a presbytery." The Kirk, with 
her sword of excommunication, and with the inspired 
violence of the political sermons and prayers, invaded 
the secular authority whenever and wherever she 
pleased, and supported the preachers in their claims to 
be tried first, when accused of treasonable libels, in their 
own ecclesiastical courts. These were certain to acquit 
them. 

James, if not pressed in this fashion, had no par- 
ticular reason for desiring Episcopal government of the 
Kirk, but being so pressed he saw no refuge save in 
bishops. Meanwhile his chief advisers — d'Aubigny, now 
Duke of Lennox, and James Stewart, the destroyer of 
Morton, now, to the prejudice of the Hamiltons, Earl 
of Arran — were men whose private life, at least in Ar- 
ran's case, was scandalous. If Arran were a Prot- 
estant, he was impatient of the rule of the pulpiteers; 
and Lennox was working, if not sincerely in Mary's 
interests, certainly in his own and for those of the 
Catholic House of Guise. At the same time he fa- 
voured the king's Episcopal schemes, and, late in 1581, 
appointed a preacher named Montgomery to the re- 
cently vacant Archbishopric of Glasgow, while he him- 
self, like Morton, drew most of the revenues. Hence 
arose tumults, and, late in 1581 and in 1582, priestly 
and Jesuit emissaries went and came, intriguing for a 
Catholic rising, to be supported by a large foreign 
force which they had not the slightest chance of ob- 



156 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

taining from any quarter. Archbishop Montgomery 
was excommunicated by the Kirk, and James, as we saw, 
had signed "A Negative Confession" (1581). 

In 1582 Elizabeth was backing the exiled Presby- 
terian Earl of Angus and the Earl of Gowrie (Ruth- 
ven), while Lennox was contemplating a coup d'etat in 
Edinburgh (August 27). Gowrie, with the connivance 
of England, struck the first blow. He, Mar, and their 
accomplices captured James at Ruthven Castle, near 
Perth (August 23, " the Raid of Ruthven "), with the 
approval of the General Assembly of the Kirk. It 
was a Douglas plot managed by Angus and Elizabeth. 
James Stewart of the Guard (now Earl of Arran) was 
made prisoner; Lennox fled the country. In October 
1582, in a Parliament at Holy rood, the conspirators 
passed Acts indemnifying themselves, and the General 
Assembly approved them. These Acts were rescinded 
later, and James had learned for life his hatred of the 
Presbyterians who had treacherously seized and insulted 
their king. 1 

In May 1583 Lennox died in Paris, leaving an heir. 
On June 27 James made his escape, " a free king," to 
the castle of St. Andrews : he proclaimed an amnesty 
and feigned reconciliation with his captor, the Earl of 
Gowrie, chief of the house so hateful to Mary — the 

1 It . appears that there was both a plot by Lennox, after the 
Raid of Ruthven, to seize James — " preaching will be of no avail 
to convert him," his mother wrote; and also an English plot, 
rejected by Gowrie, to poison both James and Mary! For the 
former, see Professor Hume Brown, ' History of Scotland,' vol. 
ii. p. 289; for the latter, see my * History of Scotland,' vol. ii. 
pp. 286, 287, with the authorities in each case. 



GOWRIE EXECUTED 157 

Ruthvens. At the same time James placed himself in 
friendly relations with his kinsfolk, the Guises, the 
terror of Protestants. He had already been suspected, 
on account of Lennox, as inclined to Rome : in fact, he 
was always a Protestant, but baited on every side — by 
England, by the Kirk, by a faction of his nobles: he 
intrigued for allies in every direction. 

The secret history of his intrigues has never been 
written. We find the persecuted and astute lad either 
in communication with Rome, or represented by shady 
adventurers as employing them to establish such com- 
munications. At one time, as has been recently dis- 
covered, a young man giving himself out as James's 
bastard brother (a son of Darnley begotten in Eng- 
land) was professing to bear letters from James to the 
Pope. He was arrested on the Continent, and James 
could not be brought either to avow or disclaim his 
kinsman ! 

A new Lennox, son of the last, was created a duke; 
a new Bothwell, Francis Stewart (nephew of Mary's 
Bothwell), began to rival his uncle in turbulence. 
Knowing that Anglo-Scottish plots to capture him 
again were being woven daily by Angus and others, 
James, in February 1584, wrote a friendly and com- 
promising letter to the Pope. In April, Arran (James 
Stewart) crushed a conspiracy by seizing Gowrie at 
Dundee, and then routing a force with which Mar and 
Angus had entered Scotland. Gowrie, confessing his 
guilt as a conspirator, was executed at Stirling (May 
2, 1584), leaving, of course, his feud to his widow and 
son. The chief preachers fled; Andrew Melville was 



158 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

already in exile, with several others, in England. Mel- 
ville, in February, had been charged with preaching 
seditious sermons, had brandished a Hebrew Bible at 
the Privy Council, had refused secular jurisdiction and 
appealed to a spiritual court, by which he was certain 
to be acquitted. Henceforward, when charged with ut- 
tering treasonable libels from the pulpit, the preachers 
were wont to appeal, in the first instance, to a court 
of their own cloth, and on this point James in the long- 
run triumphed over the Kirk. 

In a Parliament of May 18, 1584, such declinature 
of royal jurisdiction was, by " The Black Acts," made 
treason: Episcopacy was established; the heirs of 
Gowrie were disinherited; Angus, Mar, and other 
rebels were forfeited. But such forfeitures never held 
long in Scotland. 

In August 1584 a new turn was given to James's 
policy by Arran, who was Protestant, if anything, in 
belief, and hoped to win over Elizabeth, the harbourer 
of all enemies of James. Arran's instrument was the 
beautiful young Master of Gray, in France a Catholic, 
a partisan of Mary, and leagued with the Guises. He 
was sent to persuade Elizabeth to banish James's exiled 
rebels, but, like a Lethington on a smaller scale, he 
set himself to obtain the restoration of these lords as 
against Arran, while he gratified Elizabeth by betray- 
ing to her the secrets of Mary. This man was the ador- 
ing friend of the flower of chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney ! 

As against Arran the plot succeeded. Making Ber- 
wick, on English soil, their base, in November 1585 
the exiles, lay and secular, backed by England, re- 



AN ALLIANCE FORMED 159 

turned, captured James at Stirling, and drove Arran 
to lurk about the country, till, many years after, 
Douglas of Parkhead met and slew him, avenging Mor- 
ton; and, when opportunity offered, Douglas was him- 
self slain by an avenging Stewart at the Cross of 
Edinburgh. The age reeked with such blood-feuds, of 
which the preachers could not cure their fiery flocks. 

In December 1585 Parliament restored Gowrie's for- 
feited family to their own (henceforth they were con- 
stantly conspiring against James), and the exiled 
preachers returned to their manses and pulpits. But 
bishops were not abolished, though the Kirk, through 
the Synod of Fife, excommunicated the Archbishop of 
St. Andrews, Adamson, who replied in kind. He was 
charged with witchcraft, and in the long-run was 
dragged down and reduced to poverty, being accused 
of dealings with witches — and hares ! 

In July 1586 England and Scotland formed an alli- 
ance, and Elizabeth promised to make James an allow- 
ance of £4000 a-year. This, it may be feared, was 
the blood-price of James's mother: from her son, and 
any hope of aid from her son, Mary was now cut off. 
Walsingham laid the snares into which she fell, delib- 
erately providing for her means of communication with 
Babington and his company, and deciphering and 
copying the letters which passed through the channel 
which he had contrived. A trifle of forgery was also 
done by his agent, Phelipps. Mary, knowing herself 
deserted by her son, was determined, as James knew, 
to disinherit him. For this reason, and for the 
£4000, he made no strong protest against her trial. 



160 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

One of his agents in London — the wretched accomplice 
in his father's murder, Archibald Douglas — was con- 
senting to her execution. James himself thought that 
strict imprisonment was the best course ; but the Pres- 
byterian Angus declared that Mary " could not be 
blamed if she had caused the Queen of England's throat 
to be cut for detaining her so unjustly imprisoned." 
The natural man within us entirely agrees with Angus ! 

A mission was sent from Holyrood, including James's 
handsome new favourite, the Master of Gray, with his 
cousin, Logan of Restalrig, who sold the Master to 
Walsingham. The envoys were to beg for Mary's life. 
The Master had previously betrayed her; but he was 
not wholly lost, and in London he did his best, con- 
trary to what is commonly stated, to secure her life. 
He thus incurred the enmity of his former allies in the 
English Court, and, as he had foreseen, he was ruined 
in Scotland — his previous letters, hostile to Mary, being 
betrayed by his aforesaid cousin, Logan of Restalrig. 

On February 8, 1567, ended the lifelong tragedy of 
Mary Stuart. The woman whom Elizabeth vainly moved 
Amyas Paulet to murder was publicly decapitated at 
Fotheringay. James vowed that he would not accept 
from Elizabeth " the price of his mother's blood." But 
despite the fury of his nobles James sat still and took 
the money, at most some £4000 annually, — when he 
could get it. 

During the next fifteen years the reign of James, 
and his struggle for freedom from the Kirk, was per- 
turbed by a long series of intrigues of which the details 
are too obscure and complex for presentation here. His 



GIFTS OF CHURCH LANDS TO NOBLES 161 

chief minister was now John Maitland, a brother of 
Lethington, and as versatile, unscrupulous, and intel- 
ligent as the rest of that House. Maitland had actually 
been present, as Lethington's representative, at the 
tragedy of the Kirk-o'-Field. He was Protestant, and 
favoured the party of England. In the State the chief 
parties were the Presbyterian nobles, the majority of 
the gentry or lairdsj and the preachers on one side, 
and the great Catholic families of Huntly, Morton (the 
title being now held by a Maxwell), Errol, and Craw- 
ford on the other. Bothwell (a sister's son of Mary's 
Bothwell) flitted meteor-like, more Catholic than any- 
thing else, but always plotting to seize James's person ; 
and in this he was backed by the widow of Gowrie and 
the preachers, and encouraged by Elizabeth. In her 
fear that James would join the Catholic nobles, whom 
the preachers eternally urged him to persecute, Eliza- 
beth smiled on the Protestant plots — thereby, of course, 
fostering any inclination which James may have felt 
to seek Catholic aid at home and abroad. The plots 
of Mary were perpetually confused by intrigues of 
priestly emissaries, who interfered with the schemes of 
Spain and mixed in the interests of the Guises. 

A fact which proved to be of the highest importance 
was the passing, in July 1587, of an Act by which much 
of the ecclesiastical property of the ancient Church was 
attached to the Crown, to be employed in providing for 
the maintenance of the clergy. But James used much 
of it in making temporal lordships : for example, at the 
time of the mysterious Gowrie Conspiracy (August 
1600), we find that the Earl of Gowrie had obtained the 



162 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Church lands of the abbey of Scone, which his brother, 
the Master of Ruthven, desired. With the large rev- 
enues now at his disposal James could buy the support 
of the baronage, who, after the execution in 1584 of 
the Earl of Gowrie (the father of the Gowrie of the 
conspiracy of 1600), are not found leading and siding 
with the ministers in a resolute way. By 1600 young 
Gowrie was the only hope of the preachers, and prob- 
ably James's ability to enrich the nobles helped to make 
them stand aloof. Meanwhile, fears and hopes of the 
success of the Spanish Armada held the minds of the 
Protestants and of the Catholic earls. " In this world- 
wolter," as James said, no Scot moved for Spain ex- 
cept that Lord Maxwell who had first received and then 
been deprived of the earldom of Morton. James ad- 
vanced against him in Dumfriesshire and caused his 
flight. As for the Armada, many ships drifted north 
round Scotland, and one great vessel, blown up in 
Tobermory Bay by Lachlan Maclean of Duart, still in- 
vites the attention of treasure-hunters (1911). 



THE CATHOLIC EARLS 

Early in 1589 Elizabeth became mistress of some 
letters which proved that the Catholic earls, Huntly 
and Errol, were intriguing with Spain. The offence 
was lightly passed over, but when the earls, with Craw- 
ford and Montrose, drew to a head in the north, James, 
with much more than his usual spirit, headed the army 
which advanced against them: they fled from him near 



ELIZABETH PATRONISES PURITAN PLOTS 163 

Aberdeen, surrendered, and were for a brief time im- 
prisoned. As nobody knows how Fortune's wheel may 
turn, and as James, hard pressed by the preachers, 
could neglect no chance of support, he would never 
gratify the Kirk by crushing the Catholic earls; by 
temperament he was no persecutor. His calculated 
leniency caused him years of trouble. 

Meanwhile James, after issuing a grotesque procla- 
mation about the causes of his spirited resolve, sailed 
in October to woo a sea-king's daughter over the foam, 
the Princess Anne of Denmark. After happy months 
passed, he wrote, " in drinking and driving ower," he 
returned with his bride in May 1590. 

The General Assembly then ordered prayers for the 
Puritans oppressed in England ; none the less Elizabeth, 
the oppressor, continued to patronise the plots of the 
Puritans of Scotland. They now lent their approval 
to the foe of James's minister, Maitland, namely, the 
wild Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, a sister's son 
of Mary's Bothwell. This young man had the engaging 
quality of gay and absolute recklessness; he was dear 
to ladies and the wild young gentry of Lothian and 
the Borders ; he broke prisons, released friends, dealt 
with wizards, aided by Lady Gowrie stole into Holy- 
rood, his ruling ambition being to capture the king. 
The preachers prayed for " sanctified plagues " against 
James, and regarded Bothwell favourably as a sancti- 
fied plague. 

A strange conspiracy within Clan Campbell, in which 
Huntly and Maitland were implicated, now led to the 
murder, among others, of the bonny Earl of Murray by 



164 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Huntly in partnership with Maitland (February 1592). 
James was accused of having instigated this crime, from 
suspicion of Murray as a partner in the wild enterprises 
of Bothwell; and was so hard pressed by sermons that, 
in the early summer of 1592, he allowed the Black Acts 
to be abrogated, and " the Charter of the liberties of 
the Kirk " to be passed. One of these liberties was to 
persecute Catholics in accordance with the penal Acts 
of 1560. The Kirk was almost ah imperium in imperio, 
but was still prohibited from appointing the time and 
place of its own General Assemblies without royal as- 
sent. This weak point in their defences enabled James 
to vanquish them, but, in June, Bothwell attacked him 
in the Palace of Falkland and put him in considerable 
peril. 

The end of 1592 and the opening of 1593 were re- 
markable for the discovery of " The Spanish Blanks," 
papers addressed to Philip of Spain, signed by Huntly, 
the new Earl of Angus, and Errol, to be filled up with 
an oral message requesting military aid for Scottish 
Catholics. Such proceedings make our historians hold 
up obtesting hands against the perfidy of idolaters. 
But clearly, if Knox and the Congregation were acting 
rightly when they besought the aid of England against 
Mary of Guise, then Errol and Huntly are not to 
blame for inviting Spain to free them from persecution. 
Some inkling of the scheme had reached James, and a 
paper in which he weighed the pros and cons is in 
existence. His suspected understanding with the Catho- 
lic earls, whom he merely did not wish to estrange hope- 
lessly, was punished by a sanctified plague. On July 



CONSPIRACIES AGAINST SCOTTISH PRINCES 165 

24s, 1593, by aid of the late Earl of Gowrie's daughter, 
Bothwell entered Holyrood, seized the king, extorted 
his own terms, went and amazed the Dean of Durham 
by his narrative of the adventure, and seemed to have 
the connivance of Elizabeth. But in September James 
found himself in a position to repudiate his forced en- 
gagement. Bothwell now allied himself with the Catho- 
lic earls, and, as a Catholic, had no longer the prayers 
of the preachers. James ordered levies to attack the 
earls, while Argyll led his clan and the Macleans 
against Huntly, only to be defeated by the Gordon 
horse at the battle of Glenrinnes (October 3). Huntly 
and his allies, however, dared not encounter King James 
and Andrew Melville, who marched together against 
them, and they were obliged to fly to the Continent. 
Bothwell, with his retainer, Colville, continued, with 
Cecil's connivance, to make desperate plots for seiz- 
ing James ; indeed, Cecil was intriguing with them and 
other desperadoes even after 1600. Throughout all 
the Tudor period, from Henry VII. to 1601, England 
was engaged in a series of conspiracies against the per- 
sons of the princes of Scotland. The Catholics of the 
south of Scotland now lost Lord Maxwell, slain by a 
" Lockerby Lick " in a great clan battle with the John- 
stones at Dryfe Sands. 

In 1595 James's minister, John Maitland, brother 
of Lethington, died, and early in 1596 an organisation 
called " the Octavians " was made to regulate the dis- 
tracted finances of the country. On April 13, 1596, 
Walter Scott of Buccleuch made himself an everlasting 
name by the bloodless rescue of Kinmont Willie, an 



166 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Armstrong reiver, from the castle of Carlisle, where he 
was illegally held by Lord Scrope. The period was 
notable for the endless raids by the clans on both sides 
of the Border, celebrated in ballads. 

James had determined to recall the exiled Catholic 
earls, undeterred by the eloquence of " the last of all our 
sincere Assemblies," held with deep emotion in March 
1596. The earls came home; in September at Falkland 
Palace Andrew Melville seized James by the sleeve, called 
him " God's silly vassal," and warned him that Christ 
and his Kirk were the king's overlords. Soon after- 
wards Mr. David Black of St. Andrews spoke against 
Elizabeth in a sermon which caused diplomatic remon- 
strances. Black would be tried, in the first instance, 
only by a spiritual court of his brethren. There was 
a long struggle, the ministers appointed a kind of 
standing committee of safety; James issued a procla- 
mation dissolving it, and, on December 17, inflamma- 
tory sermons led a deputation to try to visit James, 
who was with the Lords of Session in the Tolbooth. 
Whether under an alarm of a Popish plot or not, the 
crowd became so fierce and menacing that the great 
Lachlan Maclean of Duart rode to Stirling to bring 
up Argyll in the king's defence with such forces as he 
could muster. The king retired to Linlithgow; the 
Rev. Mr. Bruce, a famous preacher credited with pow- 
ers of prophecy, in vain appealed to the Duke of Ham- 
ilton to lead the godly. By threatening to withdraw 
the Court and courts of justice from Edinburgh, James 
brought the citizens to their knees, and was able to 
take order with the preachers. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



THE G0WRIE CONSPIRACY 



James, in reducing the Kirk, relied as much on his 
cunning and " kingcraft " as on his prerogative. He 
summoned a convention of preachers and of the Es- 
tates to Perth at the end of February 1597, and thither 
he brought many ministers from the north, men unlike 
the zealots of Lothian and the Lowlands. He per- 
suaded them to vote themselves a General Assembly ; 
and they admitted his right to propose modifications 
in Church government, to forbid unusual convocations 
(as in Edinburgh during the autumn of 1596) ; they 
were not to preach against Acts of Parliament or of 
Council, nor appoint preachers in the great towns with- 
out the royal assent, and were not to attack individu- 
als from the pulpit. An attempt was to be made to 
convert the Catholic lords. A General Assembly at 
Dundee in May ratified these decisions, to the wrath 
of Andrew Melville, and the Catholic earls were more 
or less reconciled to the Kirk, which at this period had 
not one supporter among the nobility. James had made 
large grants of Church lands among the noblesse, and 
they abstained from their wonted conspiracies for a 
while. The king occupied himself much in encouraging 
the persecution of witches, but even that did not en- 
dear him to the preachers. 

In the Assembly of March 1598 certain ministers 

167 



168 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

were allowed to sit and vote in Parliament. In 1598- 
1599 a privately printed book by James, the ' Basilicon 
Doron,' came to the knowledge of the clergy : it revealed 
his opinions on the right of kings to rule the Church, 
and on the tendency of the preachers to introduce a 
democracy " with themselves as Tribunes of the Peo- 
ple," a very fair definition of their policy. It was to 
stop them that he gradually introduced a bastard kind 
of bishops, police to keep the pulpiteers in order. They 
were refusing, in face of the king's licence, to permit 
a company of English players to act in Edinburgh, 
for they took various powers into their hands. 

Meanwhile James's relations with England, where 
Elizabeth saw with dismay his victory over her allies, 
his clergy, were unfriendly. Plots were encouraged 
against him, but it is not probable that England was 
aware of the famous and mysterious conspiracy of the 
young Earl of Gowrie, who was warmly welcomed by 
Elizabeth on his return from Padua, by way of Paris. 
He had been summoned by Bruce, James's chief clerical 
adversary, and the Kirk had high hopes of the son of 
the man of the Raid of Ruthven. He led the opposition 
to taxation for national defence in a convention of 
June-July 1600. On August 5, in his own house at 
Perth, where James, summoned thither by Gowrie's 
younger brother, had dined with him, Gowrie and his 
brother were slain by John Ramsay, a page to the 
king. 

This affair was mysterious. The preachers, and es- 
pecially Bruce, refused to accept James's own account 
of the events, at first, and this was not surprising. 



GOWRIE CONSPIRACY 169 

Gowrie was their one hope among the peers, and the 
story which James told is so strange that nothing could 
be stranger or less credible except the various and mani- 
festly mendacious versions of the Gowrie party. 1 

James's version of the occurrences must be as much 
as possible condensed, and there is no room for the cor- 
roborating evidence of Lennox and others. As the king 
was leaving Falkland to hunt a buck early on August 
5, the Master of Ruthven, who had ridden over from 
his brother's house in Perth, accosted him. The Mas- 
ter declared that he had on the previous evening ar- 
rested a man carrying a pot of gold ; had said nothing 
to Gowrie; had locked up the man and his gold in a 
room, and now wished James to come instantly and 
examine the fellow. The king's curiosity and cupidity 
were less powerful than his love of sport : he would first 
kill his buck. During the chase James told the story 
to Lennox, who corroborated. Ruthven sent a com- 
panion to inform his brother; none the less, when the 
king, with a considerable following, did appear at 
Gowrie's house, no preparation for his reception had 
been made. 



1 Of these versions, that long lost one which was sent to Eng- 
land has been published for the first time, with the previously 
unnoticed incident of Robert Oliphant, in the author's ' James 
VI. and the Gowrie Mystery.' Here it is also demonstrated that 
all the treasonable letters attributed in 1606-1608 to Logan were 
forged by Logan's solicitor, George Sprot, though the principal 
letter seems to me to be a copy of an authentic original. That 
all, as they stand, are forgeries is the unanimous opinion of 
experts. See the whole of the documents in the author's ' Con- 
fessions of George Sprot.' Roxburghe Club. 



170 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

The Master was now in a quandary : he had no pris- 
oner and no pot of gold. During dinner Gowrie was 
very nervous; after it James and the Master slipped 
upstairs together while Gowrie took the gentlemen into 
the garden to eat cherries. Ruthven finally led James 
into a turret off the long gallery; he locked the door, 
and pointing to a man in armour with a dagger, said 
that he " had the king at his will." The man, however, 
fell a-trembling, James made a speech, and the Mas- 
ter went to seek Gowrie, locking the door behind him. 
At or about this moment, as was fully attested, 
Cranstoun, a retainer of Gowrie, reported to him and 
the gentlemen that the king had ridden away. They 
all rushed to the gate, where the porter, to whom Gow- 
rie gave the lie, swore that the king had not left the 
place. The gentlemen going to the stables passed un- 
der the turret-window, whence appeared the king, red 
in the face, bellowing " treason I " The gentlemen, 
with Lennox, rushed upstairs, and through the gallery, 
but could not force open the door giving on the turret. 
But young Ramsay had run up a narrow stair in the 
tower, burst open the turret-door opening on the stair, 
found James struggling with the Master, wounded the 
Master, and pushed him downstairs. In the confusion, 
while the king's falcon flew wildly about the turret till 
James set his foot on its chain, the man with the dagger 
vanished. The Master was slain by two of James's 
attendants ; the earl, rushing with four or five men up 
the turret-stair, fell in fight by Ramsay's rapier. 

Lennox and his company now broke through the door 
between the gallery and the turret, and all was over 



PREACHERS DISBELIEVE THE KING 171 

except a riotous assemblage of the town's folk. The 
man with the dagger had fled : he later came in and gave 
himself up; he was Gowrie's steward; his name was 
Henderson; it was he who rode with the Master to 
Falkland and back to Perth to warn Gowrie of James's 
approach. He confessed that Gowrie had then bidden 
him put on armour, on a false pretence, and the Master 
had stationed him in the turret. The fact that Hender- 
son had arrived (from Falkland) at Gowrie's house 
by half-past ten was amply proved, yet Gowrie had 
made no preparations for the royal visit. If Hender- 
son was not the man in the turret, his sudden and secret 
flight from Perth is unexplained. Moreover, Robert 
Oliphant, M.A., said, in private talk, that the part of 
the man in the turret had, some time earlier, been of- 
fered to him by Gowrie; he refused and left the earl's 
service. It is manifest that James could not have ar- 
ranged this set of circumstances: the thing is impossi- 
ble. Therefore the two Ruthvens plotted to get him 
into their hands early in the day ; and, when he arrived 
late, with a considerable train, they endeavoured to 
send these gentlemen after the king, by averring that 
he had ridden homewards. The dead Ruthvens with 
their house were forfeited. 

Among the preachers who refused publicly to accept 
James's account of the events in Gowrie's house on 
August 5, Mr. Bruce was the most eminent and the 
most obstinate. He had, on the day after the famous 
riot of December 1596, written to Hamilton asking him 
to countenance, as a chief nobleman, " the godly barons 
and others who had convened themselves," at that time, 



1/2 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

in the cause of the Kirk. Bruce admitted that he knew 
Hamilton to be ambitious, but Hamilton's ambition did 
not induce him to appear as captain of a new Con- 
gregation. The chief need of the ministers' party was 
a leader among the great nobles. Now, in 1593, the 
young Earl of Gowrie had leagued himself with the 
madcap Bothwell. In April 1594 Gowrie, Bothwell, 
and Atholl had addressed the Kirk, asking her to fa- 
vour and direct their enterprise. Bothwell made an 
armed demonstration and failed; Gowrie then went 
abroad, to Padua and Rome, and, apparently in 1600, 
Mr. Bruce sailed to France, " for the calling," he says, 
" of the Master of Gowrie " — he clearly means " the 
Earl of Gowrie." The earl came, wove his plot, and 
perished. Mr. Bruce, therefore, was averse to accept- 
ing James's account of the affair at Gowrie House. 
After a long series of negotiations Bruce was exiled 
north of Tay. 

UNION OF THE CROWNS 

In 1600 James imposed three bishops on the Kirk. 
Early in 1601 broke out Essex's rebellion of one day 
against Elizabeth, a futile attempt to imitate Scot- 
tish methods as exhibited in the many raids against 
James. Essex had been intriguing with the Scottish 
king, but to what extent James knew of and encour- 
aged his enterprise is unknown. He was on ill terms 
with Cecil, who, in 1601, was dealing with several men 
that intended no good to James. Cecil is said to have 
received a sufficient warning as to how James, on 



JAMES SUCCEEDS TO ELIZABETH 173 

ascending the English throne, would treat him ; and he 
came to terms, secretly, with Mar and Kinloss, the 
king's envoys to Elizabeth. Their correspondence is 
extant, and proves that Cecil, at last, was " running 
the Scottish course," and making smooth the way for 
James's accession. (The correspondence begins in 
June 1601.) 

Very early on Thursday, March 24, 1603, Elizabeth 
went to her account, and James received the news from 
Sir Robert Carey, who reached Holyrood on the Satur- 
day night, March 26. James entered London on 
May 6, and England was free from the fear of many 
years concerning a war for the succession. The Catho- 
lics hoped for lenient usage: disappointment led some 
desperate men to engage in the Gunpowder Plot. James 
was not more satisfactory to the Puritans. 

Encouraged by the fulsome adulation which grew up 
under the Tudor dynasty, and free from dread of per- 
sonal danger, James henceforth governed Scotland 
" with the pen," as he said, through the Privy Council. 
This method of ruling the ancient kingdom endured till 
the Union of 1707, and was fraught with many dangers. 
The king was no longer in touch with his subjects. His 
best action was the establishment of a small force of 
mounted constabulary which did more to put down the 
eternal homicides, robberies, and family feuds than all 
the sermons could achieve. 

The persons most notable in the Privy Council were 
Seton (later Lord Dunfermline), Hume, created Earl 
of Dunbar, and the king's advocate, Thomas Hamilton, 
later Earl of Haddington. Bishops, with Spottiswoode, 



174 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

the historian, Archbishop of Glasgow, sat in the Privy 
Council, and their progressive elevation, as hateful to 
the nobles as to the Kirk, was among the causes of the 
civil war under Charles I. By craft and by illegal 
measures James continued to depress the Kirk. A 
General Assembly, proclaimed by James for July 1604 
in Aberdeen, was prorogued ; again, unconstitutionally, 
it was prorogued in July 1605. Nineteen ministers, 
disobeying a royal order, appeared and constituted the 
Assembly. Joined by ten others, they kept open the 
right of way. James insisted that the Council should 
prosecute them: they, by fixing a new date for an 
Assembly, without royal consent; and James, by let- 
ting years pass without an Assembly, broke the charter 
of the Kirk of 1592. 

The preachers, when summoned to the trial, declined 
the jurisdiction. This was violently construed as 
treason, and a jury, threatened by the legal officers 
with secular, and by the preachers with future spir- 
itual punishment, by a small majority condemned some 
of the ministers (January 1606). This roused the 
wrath of all classes. James wished for more prosecu- 
tions ; the Council, in terror, prevailed on him to de- 
sist. He continued to grant no Assemblies till 1608, 
and would not allow " caveats " (limiting the powers 
of bishops) to be enforced. He summoned (1606) the 
two Melvilles, Andrew and his nephew James, to Lon- 
don, where Andrew bullied in his own violent style, and 
was, quite illegally, first imprisoned and then banished 
to France. 

In December 1606 a convention of preachers was 



THE KIRK OPPRESSED 175 

persuaded to allow the appointment of " constant 
Moderators " to keep the presbyteries in order ; and 
then James recognised the convention as a General 
Assembly. Suspected ministers were confined to their 
parishes or locked up in Blackness Castle. In 1608 a 
General Assembly was permitted the pleasure of ex- 
communicating Huntly. In 1610 an Assembly estab- 
lished Episcopacy, and no excommunications not rati- 
fied by the Bishop were allowed: the only comfort of 
the godly was the violent persecution of Catholics, who 
were nosed out by the " constant Moderators," excom- 
municated if they refused to conform, confiscated, and 
banished. 

James could succeed in these measures, but his plan 
for uniting the two kingdoms into one, Great Britain, 
though supported by the wisdom and eloquence of 
Bacon, was frustrated by the jealousies of both peoples. 
Persons born after James's accession (the post nati) 
were, however, admitted to equal privileges in either 
kingdom (1608). In 1610 James had two of his bish- 
ops, and Spottiswoode, consecrated by three English 
bishops, but he did not yet venture to interfere with the 
forms of Presbyterian public worship. 

In 1610 James established two Courts of High Com- 
mission (in 1615 united in one Court) to try offences 
in morals and religion. The Archbishops presided, 
laity and clergy formed the body of the Court, and 
it was regarded as vexatious and tyrannical. The same 
terms, to be sure, would now be applied to the inter- 
ference of preachers and presbyteries with private life 
and opinion. By 1612 the king had established 



176 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Episcopacy, which, for one reason or another, became 
equally hateful to the nobles, the gentry, and the popu- 
lace. James's motives were motives of policy. Long 
experience had taught him the inconveniences of pres- 
byterial government as it then existed in Scotland. 

To a Church organised in the presbyterian manner, 
as it has been practised since 1689, James had, orig- 
inally at least, no objection. But the combination of 
" presbyterian Hildebrandism " with factions of the 
turbulent noblesse; the alliance of the Power of the 
Keys with the sword and lance, was inconsistent with 
the freedom of the State and of the individual. " The 
absolutism of James," says Professor Hume Brown, 
" was forced upon him in large degree by the excessive 
claims of the Presbyterian clergy." 

Meanwhile the thievish Border clans, especially the 
Armstrongs, were assailed by hangings and banish- 
ments, and Ulster was planted by Scottish settlers, 
willing, or reluctant, attracted by promise of lands, or 
planted out, that they might not give trouble on the 
Border. 

Persecution of Catholics was violent, and in spring 
1615 Father Ogilvie was hanged after very cruel treat- 
ment directed by Archbishop Spottiswoode. In this 
year the two ecclesiastical Courts of High Commission 
were fused into one, and an Assembly was coerced into 
passing what James called " Hotch-potch resolutions " 
about changes in public worship. James wanted greater 
changes, but deferred them till he visited Scotland in 
1617-, when he was attended by the luckless figure of 
Laud, who went to a funeral— in a surplice! James 



ARTICLES OF PERTH 111 

had many personal bickerings with preachers, but his 
five main points, "The Articles of Perth" (of these 
the most detested were: (1) Communicants must kneel, 
not sit, at the Communion; (4) Christmas, Easter, and 
Pentecost must be observed; and (5) Confirmation must 
be introduced), were accepted by an Assembly in 1618. 
They could not be enforced, but were sanctioned by 
Parliament in 1621. The day was called Black Sat- 
urday, and omens were drawn by both parties from 
a thunderstorm which occurred at the time of the rati- 
fication of the Articles of Perth by Parliament in Edin- 
burgh (August 4, 1621). 

By enforcing these Articles, James passed the limit 
of his subjects' endurance. In their opinion, as in 
Knox's, to kneel at the celebration of the Holy Com- 
munion was an act of idolatry, was " Baal worship," 
and no pressure could compel them to kneel. The three 
great festivals of the Christian Church, whether Ro- 
man, Genevan, or Lutheran, had no certain warrant in 
Holy Scripture, but were rather repugnant to the 
Word of God. The king did not live to see the blood- 
shed and misery caused by his reckless assault on the 
liberties and consciences of his subjects; he died on 
March 27, 1625, just before the Easter season in which 
it was intended to enforce his decrees. 

The ungainliness of James's person, his lack of cour- 
age on certain occasions (he was by no means a con- 
stant coward), and the feebleness of his limbs might 
be attributed to pre-natal influences; he was injured 
before he was born by the sufferings of his mother at 
the time of Riccio's murder. His deep dissimulation 



1Y8 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

he learnt in his bitter childhood and harassed youth. 
His ingenious mind was trained to pedantry; he did 
nothing worse, and nothing more congenial to the cruel 
superstitions of his age, than in his encouragement of 
witch trials and witch burnings promoted by the Scot- 
tish clergy down to the early part of the eighteenth 
century. 

His plantation of Ulster by Scottish settlers has 
greatly affected history down to our own times, while 
the most permanent result of the awards by which he 
stimulated the colonisation of Nova Scotia has been the 
creation of hereditary knighthoods or baronetcies. 

His encouragement of learning left its mark in the 
foundation of the Town's College of Edinburgh, on the 
site of Kirk-o'-Field, the scene of his father's murder. 

The south-western Highlands, from Lochaber to 
Islay and Cantyre, were, in his reign, the scene of con- 
stant clan feuds and repressions, resulting in the fall 
of the Macdonalds, and the rise of the Campbell chief, 
Argyll, to the perilous power later wielded by the 
marquis against Charles I. Many of the sons of the 
dispossessed Macdonalds, driven into Ireland, were to 
constitute the nucleus of the army of Montrose. In 
the Orkneys and Shetlands the constant turbulence of 
Earl Patrick and his family ended in the annexation of 
the islands to the Crown (1612), and the earl's exe- 
cution (1615). 



CHAPTER XXIV 



CHARLES I 



The reign of Charles I. opened with every sign of the 
tempests which were to follow. England and Scotland 
were both seething with religious fears and hatreds. 
Both parties in England, Puritans and Anglicans, could 
be satisfied with nothing less than complete domination. 
In England the extreme Puritans, with their yearning 
after the Genevan Presbyterian discipline, had been 
threatening civil war even under Elizabeth. James had 
treated them with a high hand and a proud heart. 
Under Charles, wedded to a " Jezebel," a Catholic wife, 
Henrietta Maria, the Puritan hatred of such prelates 
as Laud expressed itself in threats of murder; while 
heavy fines and cruel mutilations were inflicted by the 
party in power. The Protestant panic, the fear of a 
violent restoration of Catholicism in Scotland, never 
slumbered. In Scotland, Catholics were at this time 
bitterly persecuted, and believed that a Presbyterian 
general massacre of them all was being organised. By 
the people the Anglican bishops and the prayer-book 
were as much detested as priests and the Mass. When 
Charles placed six prelates on his Privy Council, and 
recognised the Archbishop of St. Andrews, Spottis- 
woode, as first in precedence among his subjects, the 
nobles were angry and jealous. Charles would not do 
away with the infatuated Articles of Perth. James, 

179 



180 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

as he used to say, had " governed Scotland by the pen " 
through his Privy Council. Charles knew much less 
than James of the temper of the Scots, among whom 
he had never come since his infancy, and his Privy 
Council with six bishops was apt to be even more than 
commonly subservient. 

In Scotland as in England the expenses of national 
defence were a cause of anger ; and the mismanagement 
of military affairs by the king's favourite, Buckingham, 
increased the irritation. It was brought to a head in 
Scotland by the " Act of Revocation," under which all 
Church lands and Crown lands bestowed since 1542 
were to be restored to the Crown. This Act once more 
united in opposition the nobles and the preachers ; 
since 1596 they had not been in harmony. In 1587, 
as we saw, James VI. had annexed much of the old 
ecclesiastical property to the Crown; but he had 
granted most of it to nobles and barons as " temporal 
lordships." Now, by Charles, the temporal lords who 
held such lands were menaced, the judges ("Lords of 
Session ") who would have defended their interests 
were removed from the Privy Council (March 1626), 
and, in August, the temporal lords remonstrated with 
the king through deputations. 

In fact, they took little harm — redeeming their hold- 
ings at the rate of ten years' purchase. The main re- 
sult was that landowners were empowered to buy the 
tithes on their own lands from the multitude of 
"titulars of tithes" (1629) who had rapaciously and 
oppressively extorted these tenths of the harvest every 
year. The ministers had a safe provision at last, se- 



CHARLES I. IN EDINBURGH 181 

cured on the tithes, in Scotland styled " teinds," but 
this did not reconcile most of them to bishops and to 
the Articles of Perth. Several of the bishops were, in 
fact, " latitudinarian " or " Arminian " in doctrine, 
wanderers from the severity of Knox and Calvin. With 
them began, perhaps, the " Moderatism " which later 
invaded the Kirk; though their ideal slumbered during 
the civil war, to awaken again, with the teaching of 
Archbishop Leighton, under the Restoration. Mean- 
while the nobles and gentry had been alarmed and 
mulcted, and were ready to join hands with the Kirk 
in its day of resistance. 

In June 1633 Charles at last visited his ancient 
kingdom, accompanied by Laud. His subjects were 
alarmed and horrified by the sight of prelates in lawn 
sleeves, candles in chapel, and even a tapestry showing 
the crucifixion. To this the bishops are said to have 
bowed, — plain idolatry ! In the Parliament of June 18 
the eight representatives of each Estate, who were prac- 
tically all-powerful as Lords of the Articles, were 
chosen, not from each Estate by its own members, but 
on a method instituted, or rather revived, by James VI. 
in 1609. The nobles made the choice from the bishops, 
the bishops from the nobles, and the elected sixteen 
from the barons and burghers. The twenty-four were 
all thus episcopally minded : they drew up the bills, and 
the bills were voted on without debate. The grant of 
supply made in these circumstances was liberal, and 
James's ecclesiastical legislation, including the sanction 
of the " rags of Rome " worn by the bishops, was rati- 
fied. Remonstrances from the ministers of the old Kirk 



182 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

party were disregarded; and — the thin end of the 
wedge — the English Liturgy was introduced in the 
Royal Chapel of Holyrood and in that of St. Salva- 
tor's College, St. Andrews, where it has been read once, 
on a funeral occasion, in recent years. 

In 1634-1635, on the information of Archbishop 
Spottiswoode, Lord Balmerino was tried for treason be- 
cause he possessed a supplication or petition which 
the Lords of the minority, in the late Parliament, had 
drawn up but had not presented. He was found guilty, 
but spared: the proceeding showed of what nature the 
bishops were, and alienated and alarmed the populace 
and the nobles and gentry. A remonstrance in a manly 
spirit by Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet, was 
disregarded. 

In 1635 Charles authorised a Book of Canons, her- 
alding the imposition of a Liturgy, which scarcely 
varied, and when it varied was thought to differ for 
the worse, from that of the Church of England. By 
these canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, 
the preachers could not use their sword of excommuni- 
cation without the assent of the bishops. James VI. 
had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of 
" conceived prayers," spoken by the minister ; and be- 
lieved to be extemporary or directly inspired. There is 
an old story that one minister prayed that James 
might break his leg : certainly prayers for " sanctified 
plagues " on that prince were publicly offered, at the 
will of the minister. Even a very firm Presbyterian, 
the Laird of Brodie, when he had once heard the 
Anglican service in London, confided to his journal 



THE BRAWL IN ST. GILES' 183 

that he had suffered much from the nonsense of "con- 
ceived prayers." They were a dangerous weapon, in 
Charles's opinion: he was determined to abolish them, 
rather that he might be free from the agitation of the 
pulpit than for reasons of ritual, and to proclaim his 
own headship of the Kirk of " King Christ." 

This, in the opinion of the great majority of the 
preachers and populace, was flat blasphemy, an as- 
sumption of " the Crown Honours of Christ." The 
Liturgy was " an ill-mumbled Mass," the Mass was 
idolatry, and idolatry was a capital offence. However 
strange these convictions may appear, they were essen- 
tial parts of the national belief. Yet, with the most 
extreme folly, Charles, acting like Henry VIII. as his 
own Pope, thrust the canons and this Liturgy upon 
the Kirk and country. No sentimental arguments can 
palliate such open tyranny. 

The Liturgy was to be used in St. Giles' Church, the 
town kirk of Edinburgh (cleansed and restored by 
Charles himself), on July 23, 1637. The result was a 
furious brawl, begun by the women, of all Presbyterians 
the fiercest, and, it was said, by men disguised as 
women. A gentleman was struck on the ear by a 
woman for the offence of saying " Amen," and the fa- 
mous Jenny Geddes is traditionally reported to have 
thrown her stool at the Dean's head. The service was 
interrupted, the Bishop was the mark of stones, and 
" the Bishops' War," the Civil War, began in this 
brawl. James VI., being on the spot, had thoroughly 
quieted Edinburgh after a more serious riot, on De- 
cember 17, 1596. But Charles was far away; the city 



184 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

had not to fear the loss of the Court and its custom, as 
on the earlier occasion (the removal of the Council to 
Linlithgow in October 1637 was a trifle), and the Coun- 
cil had to face a storm of petitions from all classes 
of the community. Their prayer was that the Liturgy 
should be withdrawn. From the country, multitudes 
of all classes flocked into Edinburgh and formed them- 
selves into a committee of public safety, " The Four 
Tables," containing sixteen persons. 

The Tables now demanded the removal of the bishops 
from the Privy Council (December 21, 1637). The 
question was: Who were to govern the country, the 
Council or the Tables? The logic of the Presbyterians 
was not always consistent. The king must not force 
the Liturgy on them, but later, their quarrel with him 
was that he would not, at their desire, force the ab- 
sence of the Liturgy on England. If the king had 
the right to inflict Presbyterianism on England, he 
had the right to thrust the Liturgy on Scotland: of 
course he had neither one right nor the other. On 
February 19, 1638, Charles's proclamation, refusing 
the prayers of the supplication of December, was read 
at Stirling. Nobles and people replied with protesta- 
tions to every royal proclamation. Foremost on the 
popular side was the young Earl of Montrose : " you 
will not rest," said Rothes, a more sober leader, " till 
you be lifted up above the lave in three fathoms of 
rope." Rothes was a true prophet; but Montrose did 
not die for the cause that did " his green unknowing 
youth engage." 

The Presbyterians now desired yearly General As- 



THE COVENANT 185 

semblies (of which James VI. had unlawfully robbed 
the Kirk) ; the enforcement of an old brief -lived system 
of restrictions (caveats) on the bishops; the abolition 
of the Articles of Perth; and, as always, of the 
Liturgy. If he granted all this Charles might have 
had trouble with the preachers, as James VI. had of 
old. Yet the demands were constitutional; and in 
Charles's position he would have done well to assent. 
He was obstinate in refusal. 

The Scots now " fell upon the consideration of a 
band of union to be made legally," says Rothes, their 
leader, the chief of the House of Leslie (the family 
of Norman Leslie, the slayer of Cardinal Beaton). 
Now a " band " of this kind could not, by old Scots 
law, be legally made ; such bands, like those for the 
murder of Riccio and of Darnley, and for many other 
enterprises, were not smiled upon by the law. But, in 
1581, as we saw, James VI. had signed a covenant 
against popery ; its tenor was imitated in that of 1638, 
and there was added " a general band for the mainte- 
nance of true religion " (Presbyterianism) " and of 
the King's person" That part of the band was 
scarcely kept when the Covenanting army surrendered 
Charles to the English. They had vowed, in their band, 
to " stand to the defence of our dread Sovereign the 
King's Majesty, his person and authority." They kept 
this vow by hanging men who held the king's commis- 
sion. The words as to defending the king's authority 
were followed by " in the defence and preservation of 
the aforesaid true religion." This appears to mean 
that only a Presbyterian king is to be defended. In 



186 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

any case the preachers assumed the right to interpret 
the Covenant, which finally led to the conquest of Scot- 
land by Cromwell. As the Covenant was made between 
God and the Covenanters, on ancient Hebrew precedent 
it was declared to be binding on all succeeding genera- 
tions. Had Scotland resisted tyranny without this 
would-be biblical pettifogging Covenant, her condition 
would have been the more gracious. The signing of 
the band began at Edinburgh in Greyfriars' Church- 
yard on February 28, 1638. 

This Covenant was a most potent instrument for 
the day, but the fruits thereof were blood and tears and 
desolation: for fifty-one years common-sense did not 
come to her own again. In 1689 the Covenant was 
silently dropped, when the Kirk was restored. 

This two-edged insatiable sword was drawn: great 
multitudes signed with enthusiasm, and they who would 
not sign were, of course, persecuted. As they said, 
" it looked not like a thing approved of God, which 
was begun and carried on with fury and madness, and 
obtruded on people with threatenings, tearing of 
clothes, and drawing of blood." Resistance to the king 
— if need were, armed resistance — was necessary, was 
laudable, but the terms of the Covenant were, in the 
highest degree, impolitic and unstatesmanlike. The 
country was handed over to the preachers ; the Scots, 
as their great leader Argyll was to discover, were " dis- 
tracted men in distracted times." 

Charles wavered and sent down the Marquis of Ham- 
ilton to represent his waverings. The marquis was 
as unsettled as his predecessor, Arran, in the minority 



BISHOPS EXCOMMUNICATED AND DEPOSED 187 

of Queen Mary. He dared not promulgate the procla- 
mations; he dared not risk civil war; he knew that 
Charles, who said he was ready, was unprepared in his 
mutinous English kingdom. He granted, at last, a 
General Assembly and a free Parliament, and produced 
another Covenant, " the King's Covenant," which of 
course failed to thwart that of the country. 

The Assembly, at Glasgow (November 21, 1638), in- 
cluding noblemen and gentlemen as elders, was neces- 
sarily revolutionary, and needlessly riotous and pro- 
fane. It arraigned and condemned the bishops in their 
absence. Hamilton, as Royal Commissioner, dissolved 
the Assembly, which continued to sit. The meeting 
was in the Cathedral, where, says a sincere Covenanter, 
Baillie, whose letters are a valuable source, " our ras- 
cals, without shame, in great numbers, made din and 
clamour." All the unconstitutional ecclesiastical legis- 
lation of the last forty years was rescinded, — as all 
the new Presbyterian legislation was to be rescinded at 
the Restoration. Some bishops were excommunicated, 
the rest were deposed. The press was put under the 
censorship of the fanatical lawyer, Johnston of Waris- 
toun, clerk of the Assembly. 

On December 20 the Assembly, which sat on after 
Hamilton dissolved it, broke up. Among the Cove- 
nanters were to be reckoned the Earl of Argyll (later 
the only marquis of his House), and the Earl, later 
Marquis, of Montrose. They did not stand long to- 
gether. The Scottish Revolution produced no man at 
once great and successful, but, in Montrose, it had 
one man of genius who gave his life for honour's sake ; 



188 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

in Argyll, an astute man, not physically courageous, 
whose " timidity in the field was equalled by his timid- 
ity in the Council," says Mr. Gardiner. 

In spring (1639) war began. Charles was to move 
in force on the Border; the fleet was to watch the 
coasts; Hamilton, with some 5000 men, was to join 
hands with Huntly (both men were wavering and in- 
competent) ; Antrim, from north Ireland, was to attack 
and contain Argyll; Ruthven was to hold Edinburgh 
Castle. But Alexander Leslie took that castle for the 
Covenanters; they took Dumbarton; they fortified 
Leith ; Argyll ravaged Huntly's lands ; Montrose and 
Leslie occupied Aberdeen; and their party, in circum- 
stances supposed to be discreditable to Montrose, car- 
ried Huntly to Edinburgh. (The evidence is confused. 
Was Huntly unwilling to go? Charles (York, April 
23, 1639) calls him " feeble and false." Mr. Gardiner 
says that, in this case, and this alone, Montrose stooped 
to a mean action.) Hamilton merely dawdled and did 
nothing: Montrose had entered Aberdeen (June 19), 
and then came news of negotiations between the king 
and the Covenanters. 

As Charles approached from the south, Alexander 
Leslie, a Continental veteran (very many of the Cove- 
nant's officers were Dugald Dalgettys from the foreign 
wars), occupied Dunse Law, with a numerous army in 
great difficulties as to supplies. " A natural mind might 
despair," wrote Waristoun, who " was brought low be- 
fore God indeed." Leslie was in a strait; but, on the 
other side, so was Charles, for a reconnaissance of Les- 
lie's -position was repulsed ; the king lacked money and 



CHARLES GIVES WAY TO ASSEMBLY 189 

supplies ; neither side was of a high fighting heart ; and 
offers to negotiate came from the king, informally. 
The Scots sent in " a supplication," and on June 18 
signed a treaty which was a mere futile truce. There 
were to be a new Assembly, and a new Parliament in 
August and September. 

Charles should have fought: if he fell he would fall 
with honour ; and if he survived defeat " all England 
behoved to have risen in revenge," says the Covenant- 
ing letter-writer, Baillie, later Principal of Glasgow 
University. The Covenanters at this time could not 
have invaded England, could not have supported them- 
selves if they did, and were far from being harmonious 
among themselves. The defeat of Charles at this mo- 
ment would have aroused English pride and united the 
country. Charles set out from Berwick for London 
on July 29, leaving many fresh causes of quarrel be- 
hind him. 

Charles supposed that he was merely " giving way 
for the present " when he accepted the ratification by 
the new Assembly of all the Acts of that of 1638. He 
never had a later chance to recover his ground. The 
new Assembly made the Privy Council pass an Act 
rendering signature of the Covenant compulsory on all 
men : " the new freedom is worse than the old slavery," 
a looker-on remarked. The Parliament discussed the 
method of electing the Lords of the Articles — a method 
which, in fact, though of prime importance, had varied 
and continued to vary in practice. Argyll protested 
that the constitutional course was for each Estate to 
elect its own members. Montrose was already sus- 



190 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

pected of being influenced by Charles. Charles refused 
to call Episcopacy unlawful, or to rescind the old Acts 
establishing it. Traquair, as Commissioner, dissolved 
the Parliament; later Charles refused to meet envoys 
sent from Scotland, who were actually trying, as their 
party also tried, to gain French mediation or assist- 
ance, — help from " idolaters " ! 

In spring 1640 the Scots, by an instrument called 
" The Blind Band," imposed taxation for military pur- 
poses; while Charles in England called The Short 
Parliament to provide Supply. The Parliament re- 
fused and was prorogued; words used by Strafford 
about the use of the army in Ireland to suppress Scot- 
land were hoarded up against him. The Scots Parlia- 
ment, though the king had prorogued it, met in June, 
despite the opposition of Montrose. The Parliament, 
when it ceased to meet, appointed a Standing Commit- 
tee of some forty members of all ranks, including 
Montrose and his friends Lord Napier and Stirling of 
Keir. Argyll refused to be a member, but acted on a 
commission of fire and sword " to root out of the coun- 
try " the northern recusants against the Covenant. It 
was now that Argyll burned Lord Ogilvy's Bonny 
House of Airlie and Forthes ; the cattle were driven 
into his own country; all this against, and perhaps in 
consequence of, the intercession of Ogilvy's friend and 
neighbour, Montrose. 

Meanwhile the Scots were intriguing with discon- 
tented English peers, who could only give sympathy; 
Saville, however, forged a letter from six of them in- 
viting a Scottish invasion. There was a movement for 



SCOTS DEMANDS GRANTED 191 

making Argyll practically dictator in the north; 
Montrose thwarted it, and in August, while Charles 
with a reluctant and disorderly force was marching 
on York Montrose at Cumbernauld, the house of the 
Earl of Wigtoun, made a secret band with the Earls 
Marischal, Wigtoun, Home, Atholl, Mar, Perth, Boyd, 
Galloway, and others, for their mutual defence against 
the scheme of dictatorship for Argyll. On August 20 
Montrose, the foremost, forded Tweed, and led his regi- 
ment into England. On August 30, almost unopposed, 
the Scots entered Newcastle, having routed a force 
which met them at Newburn-on-Tyne. 

They again pressed their demands on the king; 
simultaneously twelve English peers petitioned for a 
parliament and the trial of the king's ministers. 
Charles gave way. At Ripon, Scottish and English 
commissioners met ; the Scots received " brotherly as- 
sistance " in money and supplies (a daily £850), and 
stayed where they were ; while the Long Parliament met 
in November, and in April 1641 condemned the great 
Strafford: Laud soon shared his doom. On August 10 
the demands of the Scots were granted: as a sympa- 
thetic historian writes, they had lived for a year at free 
quarters, " and recrossed the Border with the hand- 
some sum of £200,000 to their credit." 

During the absence of the army the Kirk exhibited 
symptoms not favourable to its own peace. Amateur 
theologians held private religious gatherings, which, it 
was feared, tended towards the heresy of the English 
Independents and to the " break up of the whole Kirk," 
some of whose representatives forbade these conven- 



192 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

tides, while " the rigid sort " asserted that the con- 
venticlers " were esteemed the godly of the land." An 
Act of the General Assembly was passed against the 
meetings ; we observe that here are the beginnings of 
strife between the most godly and the rather moder- 
ately pious. 

The secret of Montrose's Cumbernauld band had 
come to light after November 1640: nothing worse, at 
the moment, befell than the burning of the band by the 
Committee of Estates, to whom Argyll referred the 
matter. On May 21, 1641, the Committee was dis- 
turbed, for Montrose was collecting evidence as to the 
words and deeds of Argyll when he used his commission 
of fire and sword at the Bonny House of Airlie and in 
other places. Montrose had spoken of the matter to a 
preacher, he to another, and the news reached the Com- 
mittee. Montrose had learned from a prisoner of 
Argyll, Stewart the younger of Ladywell, that Argyll 
had held councils to discuss the deposition of the king. 
Ladywell produced to the Committee his written state- 
ment that Argyll had spoken before him of these con- 
sultations of lawyers and divines. He was placed in 
the castle, and was so worked on that he " cleared " 
Argyll and confessed that, advised by Montrose, he 
had reported Argyll's remarks to the king. Papers 
with hints and names in cypher were found in posses- 
sion of the messenger. 

The whole affair is enigmatic; in any case Ladywell 
was hanged for " leasing-making " ( spreading false re- 
ports), an offence not previously capital, and Montrose 
with his friends was imprisoned in the castle. Doubt- 



MONTROSE RELEASED 193 

less he had meant to accuse Argyll before Parliament 
of treason. On July 27, 1641, being arraigned before 
Parliament, he said, " My resolution is to carry with 
me fidelity and honour to the grave." He lay in prison 
when the king, vainly hoping for support against the 
English Parliament, visited Edinburgh (August 14- 
November 17, 1641). 

Charles was now servile to his Scottish Parliament, 
accepting an Act by which it must consent to his 
nominations of officers of State. Hamilton with his 
brother, Lanark, had courted the alliance and lived in 
the intimacy of Argyll. On October 12 Charles told 
the House " a very strange story." On the previous 
day Hamilton had asked leave to retire from Court, in 
fear of his enemies. On the day of the king's speaking, 
Hamilton, Argyll, and Lanark had actually retired. 
On October 22, from their retreat, the brothers said 
that they had heard of a conspiracy, by nobles and 
others in the king's favour, to cut their throats. The 
evidence is very confused and contradictory: Hamilton 
and Argyll were said to have collected a force of 5000 
men in the town, and, on October 5, such a gathering 
was denounced in a proclamation. Charles in vain 
asked for a public inquiry into the affair before the 
whole House. He now raised some of his opponents a 
step in the peerage: Argyll became a marquis, and 
Montrose was released from prison. On October 28 
Charles announced the untoward news of an Irish ris- 
ing and massacre. He was, of course, accused of 
having caused it, and the massacre was in turn the 
cause of, or pretext for, the shooting and hanging of 



194 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Irish prisoners — men and women — in Scotland during 
the civil war. On November 18 he left Scotland for 
ever. 

The events in England of the spring in 1642, the 
attempted arrest of the five members (January 4), the 
retreat of the queen to France, Charles's retiral to 
York, indicated civil war, and the king set up his 
standard at Nottingham on August 22. The Cove- 
nanters had received from Charles all that they asked ; 
they had no quarrel with him, but they argued that if 
he were victorious in England he would use his strength 
and withdraw his concessions to Scotland. 

Sir Walter Scott " leaves it to casuists to decide 
whether one contracting party is justified in breaking 
a solemn treaty upon the suspicion that in future con- 
tingencies it might be infringed by the other." He 
suggests that to the needy nobles and Dugald Dalgettys 
of the Covenant " the good pay and free quarters " and 
" handsome sums " of England were an irresistible 
temptation, while the preachers thought they would be 
allowed to set up " the golden candlestick " of Presby- 
tery in England ('Legend of Montrose,' chapter i.). 
Of the two the preachers were the more grievously 
disappointed. 

A General Assembly of July- August 1642 was, as 
usual, concerned with politics, for politics and religion 
were inextricably intermixed. The Assembly appointed 
a Standing Commission to represent it, and the powers 
of the Commission were of so high a strain that " to 
some it is terrible already," says the Covenanting let- 
ter-writer Baillie. A letter from the Kirk was carried 



ENGLISH PARLIAMENT APPEALS TO SCOTLAND 195 

to the English Parliament, which acquiesced in the 
abolition of Episcopacy. In November 1642 the Eng- 
lish Parliament, unsuccessful in war, appealed to Scot- 
land for armed aid ; in December, Charles took the same 
course. 

The Commission of the General Assembly, and the 
body of administrators called Conservators of the 
Peace, overpowered the Privy Council, put down a peti- 
tion of Montrose's party (who declared that they were 
bound by the Covenant to defend the king), and would 
obviously arm on the side of the English Parliament if 
England would adopt Presbyterian government. They 
held a Convention of the Estates (June 22, 1643) ; they 
discovered a Popish plot for an attack on Argyll's 
country by the Macdonalds in Ireland, once driven 
from Kin tyre by the Campbells, and now to be led by 
young Colkitto. While thus excited, they received in 
the General Assembly (August 7) a deputation from 
the English Parliament; and now was framed a new 
band between the English Parliament and Scotland. 
It was an alliance, " The Solemn League and Cove- 
nant," by which Episcopacy was to be abolished and 
religion established " according to the Word of God." 
To the Covenanters this phrase meant that England 
would establish Presbyterianism, but they were disap- 
pointed. The ideas of the Independents, such as Crom- 
well, were almost as much opposed to Presbytery as 
to Episcopacy, and though the Covenanters took the 
pay and fought the battles of the Parliament against 
their king, they never received what they had meant 
to stipulate for, — the establishment of Presbytery in 



196 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

England. Far from that, Cromwell, like James VI., 
was to deprive them of their ecclesiastical palladium, 
the General Assembly. 

Foreseeing nothing, the Scots were delighted when 
the English accepted the new band. Their army, 
under Alexander Leslie (Earl of Leven), now too old 
for his post, crossed Tweed in January 1644. They 
might never have crossed had Charles, in the autumn 
of 1643, listened to Montrose and allowed him to at- 
tack the Covenanters in Scotland. In December 1643, 
Hamilton and Lanark, who had opposed Montrose's 
views and confirmed the king in his waverings, came 
to him at Oxford. Montrose refused to serve with 
them, rather he would go abroad; and Hamilton was 
imprisoned on charges of treason : in fact, he had been 
double-minded, inconstant, and incompetent. Mon- 
trose's scheme implied clan warfare, the use of exiled 
Macdonalds, who were Catholics, against the Camp- 
bells. The obvious objections were very strong; but 
" needs must when the devil drives " : the Hanoverian 
kings employed foreign soldiers against their subjects 
in 1715 and 1745; but the Macdonalds were subjects 
of King Charles. 

Hamilton's brother, Lanark, escaped, and now 
frankly joined the Covenanters. Montrose was pro- 
moted to a marquisate, and received the royal com- 
mission as Lieutenant-General (February 1644), which 
alienated old Huntly, chief of the Gordons, who now 
and again divided and paralysed that gallant clan. 
Montrose rode north, where, in February 1644, old 
Leslie, with twenty regiments of foot, three thousand 



MONTROSE AND THE FIERY CROSS 197 

horse, and many guns, was besieging Newcastle. With 
him was the prototype of Scott's Dugald Dalgetty, Sir 
James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's senile 
incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of 
Newcastle to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose 
on Dumfries was paralysed by the cowardice or imbe- 
cility of the Scottish magnates on the western Border. 
He returned, took Morpeth, was summoned by Prince 
Rupert, and reached him the day after the disaster 
of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), from which Buc- 
cleuch's Covenanting regiment ran without stroke of 
sword, while Alexander Leslie also fled, carrying news 
of his own defeat. It appears that the Scottish horse, 
under David Leslie, were at Marston Moor, as always, 
the pick of their army. 

Rupert took over Montrose's men, and the great 
marquis, disguised as a groom, rode hard to the house 
of a kinsman, near Tay, between Perth and Dunkeld. 
Alone and comfortless, in a little wood, Montrose met 
a man who was carrying the Fiery Cross, and sum- 
moning the country to resist the Irish Scots of Alastair 
Macdonald (Colkitto), who had landed with a force of 
1500 musketeers in Argyll, and was believed to be de- 
scending on Atholl, pursued by Seaforth and Argyll, 
and faced by the men of Badenoch. The two armies 1 
were confronting each other when Montrose, in plaid 
and kilt, approached Colkitto and showed him his com- 
mission. Instantly the two opposed forces combined 
into one, and with 2500 men, some armed with bows 

1 Colkitto's men and the Badenoch contingent. 



198 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

and arrows, and others having only one charge for each 
musket, Montrose began his year of victories. 

The temptation to describe in detail his extraordi- 
nary series of successes and of unexampled marches 
over snow-clad and pathless mountains must be resisted. 
The mobility and daring of Montrose's irregular and 
capricious levies, with his own versatile military genius 
and the heroic valour of Colkitto, enabled him to defeat 
a large Covenanting force at Tippermuir, near Perth: 
here he had but his 2500 men (September 1) ; to repeat 
his victory at Aberdeen * (September 13), to evade and 
discourage Argyll, who retired to Inverary; to winter 
in and ravage Argyll's country, and to turn on his 
tracks from a northern retreat and destroy the Camp- 
bells at Inverlochy, where Argyll looked on from his 
galley (February 2, 1645). 

General Baillie, a trained soldier, took the command 
of the Covenanting levies and regular troops ("Red 
coats "), and nearly surprised Montrose in Dundee. 
By a retreat showing even more genius than his vic- 
tories, he escaped, appeared on the north-east coast, 

1 Much has been made of cruelties at Aberdeen. Montrose sent 
in a drummer, asking the Provost to remove the old men, women, 
and children. The drummer was shot, as, at Perth, Montrose's 
friend, Kilpont, had been murdered. The enemy were pursued 
through the town. Spalding names 115 townsmen slain in the 
whole battle and pursuit. Women were slain if they were heard 
to mourn their men — not a very probable story. Not one woman 
is named. The Burgh Records mention no women slain. Baillie 
says "the town was well plundered." Jaffray, who fled from 
the fight as fast as his horse could carry him, says that women 
and children were slain. See my * History of Scotland,' vol. iii. 
pp. 126-128. 



VICTORIES OF MONTROSE 199 

and scattered a Covenanting force under Hurry, at 
Auldearn, near Inverness (May 9, 1645). 

Such victories as Montrose's were more than coun- 
terbalanced by Cromwell's defeat of Rupert and Charles 
at Naseby (June 14, 1645); while Presbytery suffered 
a blow from Cromwell's demand, that the English Par- 
liament should grant " freedom of conscience," not for 
Anglican or Catholic, of course, but for religions non- 
Presbyterian. The " bloody sectaries," as the Pres- 
byterians called Cromwell's Independents, were now 
masters of the field: never would the blue banner of 
the Covenant be set up south of Tweed. 

Meanwhile General Baillie marched against Mon- 
trose, who outmanoeuvred him all over the eastern High- 
lands, and finally gave him battle at Alford on the 
Don. Montrose had not here Colkitto and the western 
clans, but his Gordon horse, his Irish, the Farquhar- 
sons, and the Badenoch men were triumphantly suc- 
cessful. Unfortunately, Lord Gordon was slain: he 
alone could bring out and lead the clan of Huntly. 
Only by joining hands with Charles could Montrose 
do anything decisive. The king, hoping for no more 
than a death in the field " with honour and a good 
conscience," pushed as far north as Doncaster, where 
he was between Poyntz's army and a great cavalry 
force, led by David Leslie, from Hereford, to launch 
against Montrose. The hero snatched a final victory. 
He had but a hundred horse, but he had Colkitto and 
the flower of the fighting clans, including the invincible 
Macleans. Baillie, in command of new levies of some 
10,000 men, was thwarted by a committee of Argyll 



200 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

and other noble amateurs. He met the enemy south 
of Forth, at Kilsyth, between Stirling and Glasgow. 
The fiery Argyll made Baillie desert an admirable po- 
sition — Montrose was on the plain, Baillie was on the 
heights — and expose his flank by a march across 
Montrose's front. The Macleans and Macdonalds, on 
the lower slope of the hill, without orders, saw their 
chance, and racing up a difficult glen, plunged into 
the Covenanting flank. Meanwhile the more advanced 
part of the Covenanting force were driving back some 
Gordons from a hill on Montrose's left, who were res- 
cued by a desperate charge of Aboyne's handful of 
horse among the red coats ; Airlie charged with the 
Ogilvies ; the advanced force of the Covenant was 
routed, and the Macleans and Macdonalds completed 
the work they had begun (August 15). Few of the 
unmounted Covenanters escaped from Kilsyth; and 
Argyll, taking boat in the Forth, hurried to Newcastle, 
where David Leslie, coming north, obtained infantry 
regiments to back his 4000 cavalry. 

In a year Montrose, with forces so irregular and so 
apt to go home after every battle, had actually cleared 
militant Covenanters out of Scotland. But the end had 
come. He would not permit the sack of Glasgow. 
Three thousand clansmen left him ; Colkitto went away 
to harry Kintyre. Aboyne and the Gordons rode home 
on some private pique ; and Montrose relied on men 
whom he had already proved to be broken reeds, the 
Homes and Kers (Roxburgh) of the Border, and the 
futile and timid Traquair. When he came among them 
they forsook him and fled; on September 10, at Kelso, 



BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH 201 

Sir Robert Spottiswoode recognised the desertion and 
the danger. 

Meanwhile Leslie, with an overpowering force of sea- 
soned soldiers, horse and foot, marched with Argyll, 
not to Edinburgh, but down Gala to Tweed; while 
Montrose had withdrawn from Kelso, up Ettrick to 
Philiphaugh, on the left of Ettrick, within a mile of 
Selkirk. He had but 500 Irish, who entrenched them- 
selves, and an uncertain number of mounted Border 
lairds with their servants and tenants. Charteris of 
Hempsfield, who had been scouting, reported that Leslie 
was but two or three miles distant, at Sunderland Hall, 
where Tweed and Ettrick meet; but the news was not 
carried to Montrose, who lay at Selkirk. At break- 
fast, on September 13, Montrose learned that Leslie 
was attacking. What followed is uncertain in its de- 
tails. A so-called " contemporary ballad " is incred- 
ibly impossible in its anachronisms, and is modern. In 
this egregious doggerel we are told that a veteran who 
had fought at Solway Moss a century earlier, and at 
" cursed Dunbar " a few years later (or under Edward 
I. ? ) advised Leslie to make a turning movement behind 
Linglie Hill. This is not evidence. Though Leslie 
may have made such a movement, he describes his vic- 
tory as very easy: and so it should have been, as 
Montrose had only the remnant of his Antrim men and 
a rabble of reluctant Border recruits. 

A news letter from Haddington, of September 16, 
represents the Cavaliers as making a good fight. The 
mounted Border lairds galloped away. Most of the 
Irish fell fighting: the rest were massacred, whether 



202 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

after promise of quarter or not is disputed. Their 
captured women were hanged in cold blood some months 
later. Montrose, the Napiers, and some forty horse 
either cut their way through or evaded Leslie's over- 
powering cavalry, and galloped across the hills of 
Yarrow to the Tweed. He had lost only the remnant 
of his Scoto-Irish ; but the Gordons, when Montrose was 
presently menacing Glasgow, were held back by Huntly, 
and Colkitto pursued his private adventures. Montrose 
had been deserted by the clans, and lured to ruin by the 
perfidious promises of the Border lords and lairds. The 
aim of his strategy had been to relieve the Royalists of 
England by a diversion that would deprive the Parlia- 
mentarians of their paid Scottish allies, and what man 
might do Montrose had done. 

After his first victory Montrose, an excommunicated 
man, fought under an offer of £1500 for his murder, 
and the Covenanters welcomed the assassin of his 
friend, Lord Kilpont. 

The result of Montrose's victories was hostility be- 
tween the Covenanting army in England and the Eng- 
lish, who regarded them as expensive and inefficient. 
Indeed, they seldom, save for the command of David 
Leslie, displayed military qualities, and later, were in- 
variably defeated when they encountered the English 
under Cromwell and Lambert. 

Montrose never slew a prisoner, but the Convention 
at St. Andrews, in November 1645, sentenced to death 
their Cavalier prisoners (Lord Ogilvy escaped dis- 
guised in his sister's dress), and they ordered the hang- 
ing of captives and of the women who had accompanied 



CHARLES TRUSTS HIS SCOTS 203 

the Irish. " It was certain of the clergy who pressed 
for the extremest measures." * They had revived the 
barbarous belief, retained in the law of ancient Greece, 
that the land had been polluted by, and must be 
cleansed by, blood, under penalty of divine wrath. As 
even the Covenanting Baillie wrote, " to this day no 
man in England has been executed for bearing arms 
against the Parliament." The preachers argued that 
to keep the promises of quarter which had been given 
to the prisoners was " to violate the oath of the 
Covenant" 2 

The prime object of the English opponents of the 
king was now " to hustle the Scots out of England." 3 
Meanwhile Charles, not captured but hopeless, was 
negotiating with all the parties, and ready to yield on 
every point except that of forcing Presbytery on Eng- 
land — a matter which, said Montereuil, the French am- 
bassador, " did not concern them but their neighbours." 
Charles finally trusted the Scots with his person, and 
the question is, had he or had he not assurance that 
he would be well received? If he had any assurance 
it was merely verbal, " a shadow of a security," wrote 
Montereuil. Charles was valuable to the Scots only 
as a pledge for the payment of their arrears of wages. 
Their was much chicanery and shuffling on both sides, 
and probably there were misconceptions on both sides. 
A letter of Montereuil (April 26, 1646) convinced 

1 Craig-Brown, * History of Selkirkshire,' vol. i. pp. 190, 193. 
' Act. Pari. Scot.,' vol. vi. pt. i. p. 492. 
2 « Act. Pari. Scot.,' vol. vi. pt. i. p. 514. 
•Hume Brown, vol. ii. p. 339. 



204 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Charles that he might trust the Scots ; they verbally 
promised " safety, honour, and conscience," but re- 
fused to sign a copy of their words. Charles trusted 
them, rode out of Oxford, joined them at Southwell, 
and, says Sir James Turner, who was present, was 
commanded by Lothian to sign the Covenant, and 
" barbarously used." They took Charles to Newcastle, 
denying their assurance to him. " With unblushing 
falsehood," says Mr. Gardiner, they in other respects 
lied to the English Parliament. On May 19 Charles 
bade Montrose leave the country, which he succeeded 
in doing, despite the treacherous endeavours of his 
enemies to detain him till his day of safety (August 
31) was passed. 

The Scots of the army were in a quandary. The 
preachers, their masters, would not permit them to 
bring to Scotland an uncovenanted king. They could 
not stay penniless in England. For £200,000 down and 
a promise, never kept, of a similar sum later, they left 
Charles in English hands, with some assurances for 
his safety, and early in February 1647 crossed Tweed 
with their thirty-six cart-loads of money. The act was 
hateful to very many Scots, but the Estates, under 
the command of the preachers, had refused to let the 
king, while uncovenanted, cross into his native king- 
dom, and to bring him meant war with England. But 
that must ensue in any case. The hope of making Eng- 
land Presbyterian, as under the Solemn League and 
Covenant, had already perished. 

Leslie, with the part of the army still kept up, 
chased Colkitto, and, at Dunavertie, under the influ- 



ESTATES AND CLERGY CLASH 205 

ence of Nevoy, a preacher, put 300 Irish prisoners to 
the sword. 

The parties in Scotland were now: (1) the Kirk, 
Argyll, the two Leslies, and most of the Commons; 
(2) Hamilton, Lanark, and Lauderdale, who had no 
longer anything to fear, as regards their estates, from 
Charles or from bishops, and who were ashamed of his 
surrender to the English; (3) Royalists in general. 
With Charles (December 27, 1647) in his prison at 
Carisbrooke, Lauderdale, Loudoun, and Lanark made 
a secret treaty, The Engagement, which they buried 
in the garden, for if it were discovered the Independ- 
ents of the army would have attacked Scotland. 

An Assembly of the Scots Estates on March 3, 1648, 
had a large majority of nobles, gentry, and many 
burgesses in favour of aiding the captive king; on the 
other side Argyll was backed by the omnipotent Com- 
mission of the General Assembly, and by the full force 
of prayers and sermons. The letter-writer, Baillie, now 
deemed " that it were for the good of the world that 
churchmen did meddle with ecclesiastical affairs only." 
The Engagers insisted on establishing Presbytery in 
England, which neither satisfied the Kirk nor the Cava- 
liers and Independents. Nothing more futile could 
have been devised. 

The Estates, in May, began to raise an army; the 
preachers denounced them: there was a battle between 
armed communicants of the preachers' party and the 
soldiers of the State at Mauchline. Invading England 
on July 8, Hamilton had Lambert and Cromwell to 
face him, and left Argyll, the preachers, and their 



206 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

" slashing communicants " in his rear. Lanark had 
vainly urged that the west country fanatics should be 
crushed before the Border was crossed. By a march 
worthy of Montrose across the fells into Lanarkshire, 
Cromwell reached Preston; cut in between the north- 
ern parts of Hamilton's army; defeated the English 
Royalists and Langdale, and cut to pieces or captured 
the Scots, disunited as their generals were, at Wigan 
and Warrington (August 17-19). Hamilton was taken 
and was decapitated later. The force that recrossed 
the Border consisted of such mounted men as escaped, 
with the detachment of Monro which had not joined 
Hamilton. 

The godly in Scotland rejoiced at the defeat of their 
army : the levies of the western shires of Ayr, Renfrew, 
and Lanark occupied Edinburgh: Argyll and the Kirk 
party were masters, and when Cromwell arrived in 
Edinburgh early in October he was entertained at din- 
ner by Argyll. The left wing of the Covenant was 
now allied with the Independents — the deadly foes of 
Presbytery! To the ordinary mind this looks like a 
new breach of the Covenant, that impossible treaty with 
Omnipotence. Charles had written that the divisions 
of parties were probably " God's way to punish them 
for their many rebellions and perfidies." The punish- 
ment was now beginning in earnest, and the alliance of 
extreme Covenanters with " bloody sectaries " could 
not be maintained. Yet historians admire the states- 
manship of Argyll ! 

If the edge which the sword of the Covenant turned 
against the English enemies of Presbytery were 



DISENABLING ACTS 207 

blunted, the edge that smote Covenanters less extreme 
than Argyll and the preachers was whetted afresh. In 
the Estates of January 5, 1649, Argyll, whose party 
had a large majority, and the fanatical Johnston of 
Waristoun (who made private covenants with Jehovah) 
demanded disenabling Acts against all who had in any 
degree been tainted by the Engagement for the rescue 
of the king. The Engagers were divided into four 
" Classes," who were rendered incapable by " The Act 
of Classes " of holding any office, civil or military. 
This Act deprived the country of the services of thou- 
sands of men, just at the moment when the English 
army, the Independents, Argyll's allies, were holding 
the trial of Charles I. ; and, in defiance of timid remon- 
strances from the Scottish Commissioners in England, 
cut off "that comely head" (January 30, 1649), 
which meant war with Scotland. 



SCOTLAND AND CHARLES II 

This was certain, for, on February 5, on the news of 
the deed done at Whitehall, the Estates proclaimed 
Charles II. as Scottish king — if he took the Covenant. 
By an ingenious intrigue Argyll allowed Lauderdale 
and Lanark, whom the Estates had intended to arrest, 
to escape to Holland, where Charles was residing, and 
their business was to bring that uncovenanted prince 
to sign the Covenant, and to overcome the influence of 
Montrose, who, with Clarendon, of course resisted such 
a trebly dishonourable act of perjured hypocrisy. Dur- 



208 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ing the whole struggle, since Montrose took the king's 
side, he had been thwarted by the Hamiltons. They 
invariably wavered: now they were for a futile policy 
of dishonour, in which they involved their young king, 
Argyll, and Scotland. Montrose stood for honour and 
no Covenant; Argyll, the Hamiltons, Lauderdale, and 
the majority of the preachers stood for the Covenant 
with dishonour and perjury; the left wing of the 
preachers stood for the Covenant, but not for its dis- 
honourable and foresworn acceptance by Charles. 

As a Covenanter, Charles II. would be the official foe 
of the English Independents and army ; Scotland would 
need every sword in the kingdom, and the kingdom's 
best general, Montrose, yet the Act of Classes, under 
the dictation of the preachers, rejected every man 
tainted with participation in or approval of the En- 
gagement — or of neglecting family prayers ! 

Charles, in fact, began (February 22) by appointing 
Montrose his Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General 
in Scotland, though Lauderdale and Lanark " abate not 
an ace of their damned Covenant in all their discourses," 
wrote Hyde. The dispute between Montrose, on the 
side of honour, and that of Lanark, Lauderdale, and 
other Scottish envoys, ended as — given the character of 
Charles II. and his destitution — it must end. Charles 
(January 22, 1650) despatched Montrose to fight for 
him in Scotland, and sent him the Garter. Montrose 
knew his doom : he replied, " With the more alacrity 
shall I abandon still my life to search my death for 
the interests of your Majesty's honour and service." 
He searched his death, and soon he found it. 



TREATY OF BREDA 209 

On May 1, Charles, by the Treaty of Breda, vowed 
to sign the Covenant; a week earlier Montrose, not 
joined by the Mackenzies, had been defeated by 
Strachan at Carbisdale, on the south of the Kyle, op- 
posite Invershin, in Sutherlandshire. He was pres- 
ently captured, and crowned a glorious life of honour 
by a more glorious death on the gibbet (May 21). He 
had kept his promise; he had searched his death; he 
had loyally defended, like Jeanne d'Arc, a disloyal 
king ; he had " carried fidelity and honour with him to 
the grave." His body was mutilated, his limbs were 
exposed, — they now lie in St. Giles' Church, Edin- 
burgh, where is his beautiful monument. 

Montrose's last words to Charles (March 26, from 
Kirkwall) implored that prince " to be just to him- 
self," — not to perjure himself by signing the Cove- 
nant. The voice of honour is not always that of 
worldly wisdom, but events proved that Charles and 
Scotland could have lost nothing and must have gained 
much had the king listened to Montrose. He submit- 
ted, we saw, to commissioners sent to him from Scot- 
land. Says one of these gentlemen, " He . . . sinfully 
complied with what we most sinfully pressed upon him, 
. . . our sin was more than his." 

While his subjects in Scotland were executing his 
loyal servants taken prisoners in Montrose's last defeat, 
Charles crossed the sea, signing the Covenants on board 
ship, and landed at the mouth of Spey. What he gained 
by his dishonour was the guilt of perjury; and the 
consequent distrust of the wilder but more honest 
Covenanters, who knew that he had perjured himself, 



210 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

and deemed his reception a cause of divine wrath and 
disastrous judgment. Next he was separated from 
most of his false friends, who had urged him to his 
guilt, and from all Royalists ; and he was not allowed 
to be with his army, which the preachers kept " purg- 
ing " of all who did not come up to their standard of 
sanctity. Their hopeful scheme was to propitiate the 
Deity and avert wrath by purging out officers of ex- 
perience, while filling up their places with godly but 
incompetent novices in war, " ministers' sons, clerks, 
and such other sanctified creatures." This final and 
fatal absurdity was the result of playing at being the 
Israel described in the early historic books of the Old 
Testament, a policy initiated by Knox in spite of the 
humorous protests of Lethington. 

For the surer purging of that Achan, Charles, and 
to conciliate the party who deemed him the greatest 
cause of wrath of all, the king had to sign a false and 
disgraceful declaration that he was " afflicted in spirit 
before God because of the impieties of his father and 
mother " ! He was helpless in the hands of Argyll, 
David Leslie, and the rest: he knew they would desert 
him if he did not sign, and he yielded (August 16). 
Meanwhile Cromwell, with Lambert, Monk, 16,000 foot 
and horse, and a victualling fleet, had reached Mussel- 
burgh, near Edinburgh, by July 28. 

David Leslie very artfully evaded every attempt to 
force a fight, but hung about him in all his movements. 
Cromwell was obliged to retreat for lack of supplies in 
a devastated country, and on September 1 reached 
Dunbar by the coast road. Leslie, marching parallel 



CROMWELL DEFEATS SCOTS 211 

along the hill-ridges, occupied Doonhill and secured a 
long, deep, and steep ravine, " the Peaths," near Cock- 
burnspath, barring Cromwell's line of march. On Sep- 
tember 2 the controlling clerical Committee was still 
busily purging and depleting the Scottish army. The 
night of September 2-3 was very wet, the officers de- 
serted their regiments to take shelter. Says Leslie him- 
self, " We might as easily have beaten them as we did 
James Graham at Philiphaugh, if the officers had 
stayed by their own troops and regiments." Several 
witnesses, and Cromwell himself, asserted that, owing 
to the insistence of the preachers, Leslie moved his men 
to the lower slopes on the afternoon of September 2. 
" The Lord hath delivered them into our hands," Crom- 
well is reported to have said. They now occupied a 
position where the banks of the lower Broxburn were 
flat and assailable, not steep and forming a strong 
natural moat, as on the higher level. All night Crom- 
well rode along and among his regiments of horse, bit- 
ing his lip till the blood ran down his chin. Leslie 
thought to surprise Cromwell; Cromwell surprised 
Leslie, crossed the Broxburn on the low level, before 
dawn, and drove into the Scots who were all unready, 
the matches of their muskets being wet and unlighted. 
The centre made a good stand, but a flank charge by 
English cavalry cut up the Scots foot, and Leslie fled 
with the nobles, gentry, and mounted men. In killed, 
wounded, and prisoners the Scots are said to have lost 
14,000 men, a manifest exaggeration. It was an utter 
defeat. 

" Surely," wrote Cromwell, " it is probable the Kirk 



212 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

has done her do." The Kirk thought not; purging 
must go on, " nobody must blame the Covenant." Neg- 
lect of family prayers was selected as one cause of the 
defeat ! Strachan and Ker, two extreme whigamores of 
the left wing of the godly, went to raise a western force 
that would neither acknowledge Charles nor join Crom- 
well, who now took Edinburgh Castle. Charles was re- 
duced by Argyll to make to him the most slavish prom- 
ises, including the payment of £40,000, the part of the 
price of Charles I. which Argyll had not yet touched. 

On October 4 Charles made "the Start"; he fled 
to the Royalists of Angus, — Ogilvy and Airlie: he was 
caught, brought back, and preached at. Then came 
fighting between the Royalists and the Estates. Mid- 
dleton, a good soldier, Atholl, and others, declared that 
they must and would fight for Scotland, though they 
were purged out by the preachers. The Estates (No- 
vember 4) gave them an indemnity. On this point 
the Kirk split into twain: the wilder men, led by the 
Rev. James Guthrie, refused reconciliation (the Re- 
monstrants ) ; the less fanatical would consent to it, on 
terms (the Resolutioners). The Committee of Estates 
dared to resist the Remonstrants : even the Commis- 
sioners of the General Assembly " cannot be against 
the raising of all fencible persons," — and at last 
adopted the attitude of all sensible persons. By May 
21, 1651, the Estates rescinded the insane Act of 
Classes, but the strife between clerical Remonstrants 
and Resolutioners persisted till after the Restoration, 
the Remonstrants being later named Protesters. 

Charles had been crowned at Scone on January 1, 



DUNDEE SACKED 213 

again signing the Covenants. Leslie now occupied 
Stirling, avoiding an engagement. In July, while a 
General Assembly saw the strife of the two sects, came 
news that Lambert had crossed the Forth at Queens- 
ferry, and defeated a Scots force at Inverkeithing, 
where the Macleans fell almost to a man; Monk cap- 
tured a number of the General Assembly, and, as Crom- 
well, moving to Perth, could now assail Leslie and the 
main Scottish force at Stirling, they, by a desperate 
resolution, with 4000 horse and 9000 foot, invaded 
England by the west marches, " laughing," says one of 
them, " at the ridiculousness of our own condition," 
On September 1 Monk stormed and sacked Dundee as 
Montrose sacked Aberdeen, but if he made a massacre 
like that by Edward I. at Berwick, history is lenient to 
the crime. 

On August 22 Charles, with his army, reached 
Worcester, whither Cromwell marched with a force 
twice as great as that of the king. Worcester was a 
Sedan: Charles could neither hold it nor, though he 
charged gallantly, could he break through Cromwell's 
lines. Before nightfall on September 3 Charles was 
a fugitive; he had no army; Hamilton was slain, Mid- 
dleton and David Leslie with thousands more were pris- 
oners. Monk had already captured, at Alyth (August 
28), the whole of the Government, the Committee of 
Estates, and had also caught some preachers, including 
James Sharp, later Archbishop of St. Andrews. Eng- 
land had conquered Scotland at last, after twelve years 
of government by preachers acting as interpreters of 
the Covenant between Scotland and Jehovah. 



CHAPTER XXV 

CONQUERED SCOTLAND 

During the nine years of the English military occupa- 
tion of Scotland everything was merely provisional; 
nothing decisive could occur. In the first place (Octo- 
ber 1651), eight English Commissioners, including 
three soldiers, Monk, Lambert, and Deane, undertook 
the administration of the conquered country. They 
announced tolerance in religion (except for Catholi- 
cism and Anglicanism, of course), and during their 
occupation the English never wavered on a point so 
odious to the Kirk. The English rulers also, as much 
as they could, protected the women and men whom the 
lairds and preachers smelled out and tortured and 
burned for witchcraft. By way of compensation for 
the expenses of war all the estates of men who had sided 
with Charles were confiscated. Taxation also was 
heavy. On four several occasions attempts were made 
to establish the Union of the two countries; Scotland, 
finally, was to return thirty members to sit in the 
English Parliament. But as that Parliament, under 
Cromwell, was subject to strange and sudden changes, 
and as the Scottish representatives were usually men 
sold to the English side, the experiment was not promis- 
ing. In its first stage it collapsed with Cromwell's 
dismissal of the Long Parliament on April 20, 1653. 
Argyll meanwhile had submitted, retaining his estates 

214 



ENGLISH COMMISSION OF JUSTICE 215 

(August 1652); but of five garrisons in his country 
three were recaptured, not without his goodwill, by 
the Highlanders ; and in these events began Monk's 
aversion, finally fatal, to the marquis as a man whom 
none could trust, and in whom finally nobody trusted. 

An English Commission of Justice, established in 
May 1652, was confessedly more fair and impartial 
than any Scotland had known, which was explained by 
the fact that the English judges "were kinless loons." 
Northern cavaliers were relieved by Monk's forbidding 
civil magistrates to outlaw and plunder persons lying 
under Presbyterian excommunication, and sanitary 
measures did something to remove from Edinburgh the 
ancient reproach of filth, for the time. While the Pro- 
testers and Resolutioners kept up their quarrel, the 
Protesters claiming to be the only genuine representa- 
tives of Kirk and Covenant, the General Assembly of 
the Resolutioners was broken up (July 21, 1653) by 
Lilburne, with a few soldiers, and henceforth the Kirk, 
having no General Assembly, was less capable of pro- 
moting civil broils. Lilburne suspected that the As- 
sembly was in touch with new stirrings towards a rising 
in the Highlands, to lead which Charles had, in 1652, 
promised to send Middleton, who had escaped from an 
English prison, as general. It was always hard to find 
any one under whom the great chiefs would serve, and 
Glencairn, with Kenmure, was unable to check their 
jealousies. 

Charles heard that Argyll would appear in arms for 
the Crown, when he deemed the occasion good; mean- 
while his heir, Lord Lome, would join the rising. He 



216 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

did so in July 1653, under the curse of Argyll, who, 
by letters to Lilburne and Monk, and by giving useful 
information to the English, fatally committed himself 
as treasonable to the royal cause. Examples of his 
conduct were known to Glencairn, who communicated 
them to Charles. 

At the end of February 1654* Middleton arrived in 
Sutherland to head the insurrection; but Monk chased 
the small and disunited force from county to county, 
and, in July, Morgan defeated and scattered its rem- 
nants at Loch Garry, just south of Dalnaspidal. The 
Armstrongs and other Border clans, who had been 
moss-trooping in their ancient way, were also reduced, 
and new fortresses and garrisons bridled the fighting 
clans of the west. With Cromwell as Protector in 1654, 
Free Trade with England was offered to the Scots with 
reduced taxation : an attempt to legislate for the Union 
failed. In 1655-1656 a Council of State and a Com- 
mission of Justice included two or three Scottish mem- 
bers, and burghs were allowed to elect magistrates who 
would swear loyalty to Cromwell. Cromwell died on 
the day of his fortunate star (September 3, 1658), and 
twenty-one members for Scotland sat in Richard Crom- 
well's Parliament. When that was dissolved, and when 
the Rump was reinstated, a new Bill of Union was 
introduced, and, by reason of the provisions for reli- 
gious toleration (a thing absolutely impious in Pres- 
byterian eyes), was delayed till (October 1659) the 
Rump was sent to its account. Conventions of Burghs 
and Shires were now held by Monk, who, leading his 
army of occupation south in January 1660, left the 



RESPECT FOR COVENANTS 21 1 

Resolutioners and Protesters standing at gaze, as hos- 
tile as ever, awaiting what thing should befall. Both 
parties still cherished the Covenants, and so long as 
these documents were held to be for ever binding on 
all generations, so long as the king's authority was to 
be resisted in defence of these treaties with Omnipo- 
tence, it was plain that in Scotland there could neither 
be content nor peace. For twenty-eight years, during 
a generation of profligacy and turmoil, cruelty and 
corruption, the Kirk and country were to reap what 
they had sown in 1638. 



CHAPTER XXVI 



THE RESTORATION 



There was " dancing and derray " in Scotland among 
the laity when the king came to his own again. The 
darkest page in the national history seemed to have 
been turned; the conquering English were gone with 
their abominable tolerance, their craze for soap and 
water, their aversion to witch-burnings. The nobles 
and gentry would recover their lands and compensation 
for their losses ; there would be offices to win, and " the 
spoils of office." 

It seems that in Scotland none of the lessons of mis- 
fortune had been learned. Since January the chiefs of 
the milder party of preachers, the Resolutioners, — they 
who had been reconciled with the Engagers, — were em- 
ploying the Rev. James Sharp, who had been a prisoner 
in England, as their agent with Monk, with Lauderdale, 
in April, with Charles in Holland, and, again, in Lon- 
don. Sharp was no fanatic. From the first he as- 
sured his brethren, Douglas of Edinburgh, Baillie, and 
the rest, that there was no chance for " rigid Presby- 
terianism." They could conceive of no Presbyterian- 
ism which was not rigid, in the manner of Andrew Mel- 
ville, to whom his king was " Christ's silly vassal." 
Sharp warned them early that in face of the irrecon- 
cilable Protesters, " moderate Episcopacy " would be 
preferred ; and Douglas himself assured Sharp that the 

218 



DEFIANCE OF ARGYLL 219 

new generation in Scotland " bore a heart-hatred to the 
Covenant," and are " wearied of the yoke of Presby- 
terial government.". 

This was true: the ruling classes had seen too much 
of Presbyterial government, and would prefer bishops 
as long as they were not pampered and all-powerful. 
On the other hand the lesser gentry, still more their 
godly wives, the farmers and burgesses, and the preach- 
ers, regarded the very shadow of Episcopacy as a 
breach of the Covenant and an insult to the Almighty. 
The Covenanters had forced the Covenant on the con- 
sciences of thousands, from the king downwards, who 
in soul and conscience loathed it. They were to drink 
of the same cup — Episcopacy was to be forced on them 
by fines and imprisonments. Scotland, her people and 
rulers were moving in a vicious circle. The Resolu- 
tioners admitted that to allow the Protesters to have 
any hand in affairs was " to breed continual distemper 
and disorders," and Baillie was for banishing the lead- 
ers of the Protesters, irreconcilables like the Rev. James 
Guthrie, to the Orkney Islands. But the Resolutioners, 
on the other hand, were no less eager to stop the use 
of the Liturgy in Charles's own household, and to perse- 
cute every sort of Catholic, Dissenter, Sectary, and 
Quaker in Scotland. Meanwhile Argyll, in debt, de- 
spised on all sides, and yet dreaded, was holding a 
great open-air Communion meeting of Protesters at 
Paisley, in the heart of the wildest Covenanting region 
(May 27, 1660). He was still dangerous; he was try- 
ing to make himself trusted by the Protesters, who were 
opposed to Charles. 



220 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

It may be doubted if any great potentate in 
Scotland except the marquis wished to revive the consti- 
tutional triumphs of Argyll's party in the last Parlia- 
ment of Charles I. Charles now named his Privy Coun- 
cil and Ministers without waiting for parliamentary 
assent — though his first Parliament would have assented 
to anything. He chose only his late supporters: Glen- 
cairn who raised his standard in 1653; Rothes, a hu- 
morous and not a cruel voluptuary; and, as Secretary 
for Scotland in London, Lauderdale, who had urged 
him to take the Covenant, and who for twenty years 
was to be his buffoon, his favourite, and his wavering 
and unscrupulous adviser. Among these greedy and 
treacherous profligates there would, had he survived, 
have been no place for Montrose. 

In defiance of warnings from omens, second-sighted 
men, and sensible men, Argyll left the safe sanctuary of 
his mountains and sea-straits, and betook himself to 
London, " a fey man." Most of his past was covered 
by an Act of Indemnity, but not his doings in 1653. 
He was arrested before he saw the king's face (July 8, 
1660), and lay in the Tower till, in December, he was 
taken to be tried for treason in Scotland. 

Sharp's friends were anxious to interfere in favour 
of establishing Presbyterianism in England; he told 
them that the hope was vain; he repeatedly asked for 
leave to return home, and, while an English preacher 
assured Charles that the rout of Worcester had been 
God's vengeance for his taking of the Covenant, Sharp 
(June 25) told his Resolutioners that " the Protesters' 
doom is dight." 



PARLIAMENT OBSEQUIOUS 221 

Administration in Scotland was intrusted to the 
Committee of Estates whom Monk (1650) had cap- 
tured at Alyth, and with them Glencairn, as Chancellor, 
entered Edinburgh on August 22. Next day, while 
the Committee was busy, James Guthrie and some Pro- 
tester preachers met, and, in the old way, drew up a 
" supplication." They denounced religious toleration, 
and asked for the establishment of Presbytery in Eng- 
land, and the filling of all offices with Covenanters. 
They were all arrested and accused of attempting to 
" rekindle civil war," which would assuredly have fol- 
lowed had their prayer been accepted. Next year 
Guthrie was hanged. But ten days after his arrest 
Sharp had brought down a letter of Charles to the 
Edinburgh Presbytery, promising to " protect and pre- 
serve the government of the Church of Scotland as it 
is established by law." Had the words run " as it may 
be established by law " (in Parliament) it would not 
have been a dishonourable quibble — as it was. 

Parliament opened on New Year's Day 1661, with 
Middleton as Commissioner. In the words of Sir George 
Mackenzie, then a very young advocate and man of 
letters, " never was Parliament so obsequious." The 
king was declared " supreme Governor over all persons 
and in all causes " (a blow at Kirk judicature), and 
all Acts between 1633 and 1661 were rescinded, just 
as thirty years of ecclesiastical legislation had been 
rescinded by the Covenanters. A sum of £40,000 yearly 
was settled on the king. Argyll was tried, was de- 
fended by young George Mackenzie, and, when he 
seemed safe, his doom was fixed by the arrival of a 



222 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Campbell from London bearing some of his letters to 
Lilburne and Monk (1653-1655) which the Indem- 
nity of 1651 did not cover. He died, by the axe 
(not the rope, like Montrose), with dignity and 
courage. 

The question of Church government in Scotland was 
left to Charles and his advisers. The problem presented 
to the Government of the Restoration by the Kirk was 
much more difficult and complicated than historians 
usually suppose. The pretensions which the preachers 
had inherited from Knox and Andrew Melville were 
practically incompatible, as had been proved, with the 
existence of the State. In the southern and western 
shires, — such as those of Dumfries, Galloway, Ayr, 
Renfrew, and Lanark, — the forces which attacked the 
Engagers had been mustered; these shires had backed 
Strachan and Ker and Guthrie in the agitation against 
the king, the Estates, and the less violent clergy, after 
Dunbar. But without Argyll, and with no probable 
noble leaders, they could do little harm ; they had done 
none under the English occupation, which abolished the 
General Assembly. To have restored the Assembly, or 
rather two Assemblies — that of the Protesters and that 
of the Resolutionists, — would certainly have been peril- 
ous. Probably the wisest plan would have been to 
grant a General Assembly, to meet after the session 
of Parliament; not, as had been the custom, to meet 
before it and influence or coerce the Estates. Had that 
measure proved perilous to peace it need not have 
been repeated, — the Kirk might have been left in the 
state to which the English had reduced it. 



EPISCOPACY RESTORED 223 

This measure would not have so much infuriated the 
devout as did the introduction of " black prelacy," and 
the ejection of some 300 adored ministers, chiefly in 
the south-west, and " the making of a desert first, and 
then peopling it with owls and satyrs " (the curates), 
as Archbishop Leighton described the action of 1663. 
There ensued the finings of all who would not attend 
the ministrations of " owls and satyrs," — a grievance 
which produced two rebellions (1666 and 1679) and 
a doctrine of anarchism, and was only worn down by 
eternal and cruel persecutions. 

By violence the Restoration achieved its aim; the 
Revolution of 1688 entered into the results; it was a 
bitter moment in the evolution of Scotland — a moment 
that need never have existed. Episcopacy was restored, 
four bishops were consecrated, and Sharp accepted (as 
might have long been foreseen) the see of St. An- 
drews. He was henceforth reckoned a Judas, and as- 
suredly he had ruined his character for honour: he 
became a puppet of Government, despised by his mas- 
ters, loathed by the rest of Scotland. 

In May-September 1662 Parliament ratified the 
change to Episcopacy. It seems to have been thought 
that few preachers except the Protesters would be re- 
calcitrant, refuse collation from bishops, and leave their 
manses. In point of fact, though they were allowed to 
consult their consciences till February 1663, nearly 300 
ministers preferred their consciences to their livings. 
They remained centres of the devotion of their flocks, 
and the " curates," hastily gathered, who took their 
places, were stigmatised as ignorant and profligate, 



224 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

while, as they were resisted, rabbled, and daily insulted, 
the country was full of disorder. 

The Government thus mortally offended the devout 
classes, though no attempt was made to introduce a 
liturgy. In the churches the services were exactly, 
or almost exactly, what they had been; but excom- 
munications could now only be done by sanction of the 
bishops. Witch-burnings, in spite of the opposition of 
George Mackenzie and the Council, were soon as com- 
mon as under the Covenant. Oaths declaring it unlaw- 
ful to enter into covenants or take up arms against the 
king were imposed on all persons in office. 

Middleton, of his own authority, now proposed the 
ostracism, by parliamentary ballot, of twelve persons 
reckoned dangerous. Lauderdale was mainly aimed at 
(it is a pity that the bullet did not find its billet), 
with Crawford, Cassilis, Tweeddale, Lothian, and other 
peers who did not approve of the recent measures. But 
Lauderdale, in London, seeing Charles daily, won his 
favour; Middleton was recalled (March 1663), and 
Lauderdale entered freely on his wavering, unscrupu- 
lous, corrupt, and disastrous period of power. 

The Parliament of June 1663, meeting under Rothes, 
was packed by the least constitutional method of 
choosing the Lords of the Articles. Waristoun was 
brought from France, tried, and hanged, " expressing 
more fear than I ever saw," wrote Lauderdale, whose 
Act " against Separation and Disobedience to Ecclesi- 
astical Authority " fined abstainers from services in 
their parish churches. In 1664? Sharp, who was 
despised by Lauderdale and Glencairn, obtained the 



COVENANTERS INTRIGUE WITH HOLLAND 225 

erection of that old grievance — a Court of High Com- 
mission, including bishops, to punish nonconformists. 
Sir James Turner was intrusted with the task of dra- 
gooning them, by fining and the quartering of soldiers 
on those who would not attend the curates and would 
keep conventicles. Turner was naturally clement and 
good-natured, but wine often deprived him of his wits, 
and his soldiery behaved brutally. Their excesses in- 
creased discontent, and war with Holland (1664) gave 
them hopes of a Dutch ally. Conventicles became com- 
mon ; they had an organisation of scouts and sentinels. 
The malcontents intrigued with Holland in 1666, and 
schemed to capture the three Keys of the Kingdom — 
the castles of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Edinburgh. 
The States-General promised, when this was done, to 
send ammunition and 150,000 gulden (July 1666). 

When rebellion did break out it had no foreign aid, 
and a casual origin. In the southwest Turner com- 
manded but seventy soldiers, scattered all about the 
country. On November 14 some of them mishandled 
an old man in the clachan of Dairy, on the Ken. A 
soldier was shot in revenge (Mackenzie speaks as if a 
conventicle was going on in the neighbourhood) ; peo- 
ple gathered in arms, with the Laird of Corsack, young 
Maxwell of Monreith, and M'Lennan; caught Turner, 
undressed, in Dumfries, and carried him with them as 
they "went conventicling about," as Mackenzie writes, 
holding prayer-meetings, led by Wallace, an old soldier 
of the Covenant. At Lanark they renewed the 
Covenant. Dalziel of Binns, who had learned war in 
Russia, led a pursuing force. The rebels were dis- 



226 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

appointed in hopes of Dutch or native help at Edin- 
burgh; they turned, when within three miles of the 
town, into the passes of the Pentland Hills, and at 
Bullion Green, on November 28, displayed fine soldierly 
qualities and courage, but fled, broken, at nightfall. 
The soldiers and countryfolk, who were unsympathetic, 
took a number of prisoners, preachers and laymen, on 
whom the Council, under the presidency of Sharp, ex- 
ercised a cruelty bred of terror. The prisoners were 
defended by George Mackenzie: it has been strangely 
stated that he was Lord Advocate, and persecuted 
them! Fifteen rebels were hanged: the use of torture 
to extract information was a return, under Fletcher, 
the King's Advocate, to a practice of Scottish law 
which had been almost in abeyance since 1638 — except, 
of course, in the case of witches. Turner vainly tried 
to save from the Boot l the Laird of Corsack, who 
had protected his life from the fanatics. " The execu- 
tioner favoured Mr. Mackail," says the Rev. Mr. Kirk- 
ton, himself a sufferer later. This Mr. Mackail, when 
a lad of twenty-one (1662), had already denounced the 
rulers, in a sermon, as on the moral level of Haman 
and Judas. 

It is entirely untrue that Sharp concealed a letter 
from the king commanding that no blood should be 
shed (Charles detested hanging people). If any one 
concealed his letter, it was Burnet, Archbishop of 
Glasgow. Dalziel now sent Ballantyne to supersede 

1 The Boot was an old French and Scottish implement. It 
was a framework into which the human leg was inserted; wedges 
were then driven between the leg and the framework. 



RULE OF LAUDERDALE 227 

Turner and to exceed him in ferocity; and Bellenden 
and Tweeddale wrote to Lauderdale deprecating the 
cruelties and rapacity of the reaction, and avowing 
contempt of Sharp. He was " snibbed," confined to 
his diocese, and " cast down, yea, lower than the dust," 
wrote Rothes to Lauderdale. He was held to have 
exaggerated in his reports the forces of the spirit of 
revolt; but Tweeddale, Sir Robert Murray, and Kin- 
cardine found when in power that matters were really 
much more serious than they had supposed. In the 
disturbed districts — mainly the old Strathclyde and 
Pictish Galloway — the conformist ministers were per- 
petually threatened, insulted, and robbed. 

According to a sympathetic historian, " on the day 
when Charles should abolish bishops and permit free 
General Assemblies, the western Whigs would become 
his law-abiding subjects; but till that day they would 
be irreconcilable." But a Government is not always 
well advised in yielding to violence. Moreover, when 
Government had deserted its clergy, and had granted 
free General Assemblies, the two Covenants would re- 
arise, and the pretensions of the clergy to dominate 
the State would be revived. Lauderdale drifted into 
a policy of alternate " Indulgences " or tolerations, 
and of repression, which had the desired effect, at 
the maximum of cost to justice and decency. Before 
England drove James II. from the throne but a small 
remnant of fanatics were in active resistance, and the 
Covenants had ceased to be dangerous. 

A scheme of partial toleration was mooted in 1667, 
and Rothes was removed from his practical dictator- 



228 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ship, while Turner was made the scapegoat of Rothes, 
Sharp, and Dalziel. The result of the scheme of tol- 
eration was an increase in disorder. Bishop Leighton 
had a plan for abolishing all but a shadow of Epis- 
copacy; but the temper of the recalcitrants displayed 
itself in a book, s Naphtali,' advocating the right of 
the godly to murder their oppressors. This work con- 
tained provocations to anarchism, and, in Knox's spirit, 
encouraged any Phinehas conscious of a " call " from 
Heaven to do justice on such persons as he found 
guilty of troubling the godly. 

Fired by such Christian doctrines, on July 11, 1668, 
one Mitchell — " a preacher of the Gospel, and a youth 
of much zeal and piety," says Wodrow the historian — 
shot at Sharp, wounded the Bishop of Orkney in the 
street of Edinburgh, and escaped. This event delayed 
the project of conciliation, but in July 1669 the first 
Indulgence was promulgated. On making certain con- 
cessions, ousted ministers were to be restored. Two- 
and-forty came in, including the Resolutioner Douglas, 
in 1660 the correspondent of Sharp. The Indulgence 
allowed the indulged to reject Episcopal collation; but 
while brethren exiled in Holland denounced the scheme 
(these brethren, led by Mr. MacWard, opposed all at- 
tempts at reconciliation), it also offended the Arch- 
bishops, who issued a Remonstrance. Sharp was si- 
lenced; Burnet of Glasgow was superseded, and the see 
was given to the saintly but unpractical Leighton. By 
1670 conventiclers met in arms, and " a clanking Act," 
as Lauderdale called it, menaced them with death: 
Charles II. resented but did not rescind it. In fact, 



DISORGANISATION OF SCOTTISH CHURCH 229 

the disorders and attacks on conformist ministers were 
of a violence much overlooked by our historians. In 
1672 a second Indulgence split the Kirk into factions — 
the exiles in Holland maintaining that preachers who 
accepted it should be held men unholy, false brethren. 
But the Indulged increased in numbers, and finally in 
influence. 

To such a man as Leighton the whole quarrel seemed 
" a scuffle of drunken men in the dark." An English- 
man entering a Scottish church at this time found no 
sort of liturgy; prayers and sermons were what the 
minister chose to make them---in fact, there was no 
persecution for religion, says Sir George Mackenzie. 
But if men thought even a shadow of Episcopacy an 
offence to Omnipotence, and the king's authority in 
ecclesiastical cases a usurping of " the Crown Honours 
of Christ " ; if they consequently broke the law by 
attending armed conventicles and assailing conformist 
preachers, and then were fined or imprisoned, — from 
their point of view they were being persecuted for their 
religion. Meanwhile they bullied and " rabbled " the 
" curates " for their religion : such was Leighton's 
" drunken scuffle in the dark." 

In 1672 Lauderdale married the rapacious and 
tyrannical daughter of Will Murray — of old the 
whipping-boy of Charles I., later a disreputable in- 
triguer. Lauderdale's own ferocity of temper and his 
greed had created so much dislike that in the Par- 
liament of 1673 he was met by a constitutional oppo- 
sition headed by the Duke of Hamilton, and with Sir 
George Mackenzie as its orator. Lauderdale consented 



230 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

to withdraw monopolies on salt, tobacco, and brandy; 
to other grievances he would not listen (the distresses 
of the Kirk were not brought forward), and he dis- 
solved the Parliament. The opposition tried to get 
at him through the English Commons, who brought 
against him charges like those which were fatal to 
Strafford. They failed ; and Lauderdale, holding seven 
offices himself, while his brother Haltoun was Master of 
the Mint, ruled through a kind of clique of kinsmen and 
creatures. 

Leighton, in despair, resigned his see: the irrecon- 
cilables of the Kirk had crowned him with insults. The 
Kirk, he said, " abounded in furious zeal and endless 
debates about the empty name and shadow of a differ- 
ence in government, in the meanwhile not having of 
solemn and orderly public worship as much as a 
shadow." 

Wodrow, the historian of the sufferings of the Kirk, 
declares that through the riotous proceedings of the 
religious malcontents " the country resembled war as 
much as peace." But an Act of Council of 1677 bid- 
ding landowners sign a bond for the peaceable be- 
haviour of all on their lands was refused obedience by 
many western lairds. They could not enforce order, 
they said: hence it seemed to follow that there was 
much disorder. Those who refused were, by a stretch 
of the law of " law-burrows," bound over to keep the 
peace of the Government. Lauderdale, having nothing 
that we would call a police, little money, and a small 
insufficient force of regulars, called in " the Highland 
Host," the retainers of Atholl, Glenorchy, Mar, Moray, 



HANGING OF MITCHELL 231 

and Airlie, and other northern lords, and quartered 
them on the disturbed districts for a month. They 
were then sent home bearing their spoils (February 
1678). Atholl and Perth (later to be the Catholic 
minister of James II. ) now went over to " the Party," 
the opposition, Hamilton's party; Hamilton and oth- 
ers rode to London to complain against Lauderdale, 
but he, aided by the silver tongue of Mackenzie, who 
had changed sides, won over Charles, and Lauderdale's 
assailants were helpless. 

Great unpopularity and disgrace were achieved by 
the treatment of the pious Mitchell, who, we have seen, 
missed Sharp and shot the Bishop of Orkney in 1668. 
In 1674 he was taken, and confessed before the Council, 
after receiving from Rothes, then Chancellor, assurance 
of his life: this with Lauderdale's consent. But when 
brought before the judges, he retracted his confession. 
He was kept a prisoner on the Bass Rock ; in 1676 was 
tortured; in January 1678 was again tried. Haltoun 
(who in a letter of 1674 had mentioned the assurance 
of life), Rothes, Sharp, and Lauderdale all swore that, 
to their memory, no assurance had been given in 1674. 
Mitchell's counsel asked to be allowed to examine the 
Register of the Council, but, for some invisible tech- 
nical reasons, the Lords of the Justiciary refused; the 
request, they said, came too late. Mackenzie prose- 
cuted; he had been Mitchell's counsel in 1674, and it 
is impossible to follow the reasoning by which he justi- 
fies the condemnation and hanging of Mitchell in Janu- 
ary 1678. Sharp was supposed to have urged Mitch- 
ell's trial, and to have perjured himself, which is far 



232 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

from certain. Though Mitchell was guilty, the man- 
ner of his taking off was flagrantly unjust and most 
discreditable to all concerned. 

Huge armed conventicles, and others led by Welsh, a 
preacher, marched about through the country in De- 
cember 1678 to May 1679. In April 1679 two sol- 
diers were murdered while in bed; next day John 
Graham of Claverhouse, who had served under the 
Prince of Orange with credit, and now comes upon the 
scene, reported that Welsh was organising an armed 
rebellion and that the peasants were seizing the weap- 
ons of the militia. Balfour of Kinloch (Burley) and 
Robert Hamilton, a laird in Fife, were the leaders of 
that extreme sect which was feared as much by the 
indulged preachers as by the curates, and, on May £, 
1679, Balfour, with Hacks toun of Rathillet (who 
merely looked on), and other pious desperadoes, passed 
half an hour in clumsily hacking Sharp to death, in 
the presence of his daughter, at Magus Moor near St. 
Andrews. 

The slayers, says one of them, thanked the Lord 
" for leading them by His Holy Spirit in every step 
they stepped in that matter," and it is obvious that 
mere argument was unavailing with gentlemen who 
cherished such opinions. In the portraits of Sharp 
we see a face of refined goodness which makes the 
physiognomist distrust his art. From very early times 
Cromwell had styled Sharp " Sharp of that ilk." He 
was subtle, he had no fanaticism, he warned his breth- 
ren in 1660 of the impossibility of restoring their old 
authority and discipline. But when he accepted an 



CLAVERHOUSE DEFEATED 233 

archbishopric he sold his honour; his servility to 
Charles and Lauderdale was disgusting ; fear made him 
cruel; his conduct at Mitchell's last trial is, at best, 
ambiguous ; and the hatred in which he was held is 
proved by the falsehoods which his enemies told about 
his private life and his sorceries. 

The murderers crossed the country, joined the armed 
fanatics of the west, under Robert Hamilton, and on 
Restoration Day (May 29) burned Acts of the Gov- 
ernment at Rutherglen. Claverhouse rode out of Glas- 
gow with a small force, to inquire into this proceeding; 
met the armed insurgents in a strong position defended 
by marshes and small lochs ; sent to Lord Ross at Glas- 
gow for reinforcements which did not arrive; and has 
himself told how he was defeated, pursued, and driven 
back into Glasgow. " This may be accounted the be- 
ginning of the rebellion in my opinion." 

Hamilton shot with his own hand one of the pris- 
oners, and reckoned the sparing of the others " one of 
our first steppings aside." Men so conscientious as 
Hamilton were rare in his party, which was ruined 
presently by its own distracted counsels. 

The forces of the victors of Drumclog were swollen 
by their success, but they were repulsed with loss in an 
attack on Glasgow. The commands of Ross and Claver- 
house were then withdrawn to Stirling, and when Liv- 
ingstone joined them at Larbert, the whole army mus- 
tered but 1800 men — so weak were the regulars. The 
militia was raised, and the king sent down his illegiti- 
mate son, Monmouth, husband of the heiress of Buc- 
cleuch, at the head of several regiments of redcoats. 



234 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Argyll was not of service; he was engaged in private 
war with the Macleans, who refused an appeal for help 
from the rebels. They, in Glasgow and at Hamilton, 
were quarrelling over the Indulgence: the extremists 
called Mr. Welsh's party " rotten-hearted " — Welsh 
would not reject the king's authority — the Welshites 
were the more numerous. On June 22 the Clyde, at 
Bothwell Bridge, separated the rebels — whose preach- 
ers were inveighing against each other — from Mon- 
mouth's army. Monmouth refused to negotiate till 
the others laid down their arms, and after a brief artil- 
lery duel, the royal infantry carried the bridge, and 
the rest of the affair was pursuit by the cavalry. The 
rival Covenanting leaders, Russel, one of Sharp's mur- 
derers, and Ure, give varying accounts of the affair, 
and each party blames the other. The rebel force 
is reckoned at from five to seven thousand, the royal 
army was of 2300 according to Russel. " Some hun- 
dreds " of the Covenanters fell, and " many hundreds," 
the Privy Council reported, were taken. 

The battle of Bothwell Bridge severed the extremists, 
Robert Hamilton, Richard Cameron and Cargill, the 
famous preachers, and the rest, from the majority of 
the Covenanters. They dwindled to the " Remnant," 
growing the fiercer as their numbers decreased. Only 
two ministers were hanged ; hundreds of prisoners were 
banished, like Cromwell's prisoners after Dunbar, to 
the American colonies. Of these some two hundred 
were drowned in the wreck of their vessel off the Ork- 
neys. The main body were penned up in Greyfriars 
Churchyard; many escaped; more signed a promise to 



THE WILD HILL-FOLK 235 

remain peaceful and shun conventicles. There was 
more of cruel carelessness than of the deliberate cru- 
elty displayed in the massacres and hangings of women 
after Philiphaugh and Dunavertie. But the avaricious 
and corrupt rulers, after 1679, headed by James, Duke 
of York (Lauderdale being removed), made the rising 
of Bothwell Bridge the pretext for fining and ruining 
hundreds of persons, especially lairds, who were ac- 
cused of helping or harbouring rebels. The officials 
were rapacious for their own profit. The records of 
scores of trials prosecuted for the sake of spoil, and 
disgraced by torture and injustice, make miserable 
reading. Between the trials of the accused and the 
struggle with the small minority of extremists led by 
Richard Cameron and the aged Mr. Cargill, the history 
of the country is monotonously wretched. It was in 
prosecuting lairds and peasants and preachers that Sir 
George Mackenzie, by nature a lenient man and a 
lover of literature, gained the name of " the bluidy 
advocate." 

Cameron and his followers rode about after issuing 
the wildest manifestoes, as at Sanquhar in the shire of 
Dumfries (June 22, 1680). Bruce of Earlshall was 
sent with a party of horse to pursue, and, in the wild 
marshes of Airs Moss, in Ayrshire, Cameron " fell 
praying and fighting " ; while Hackstoun of Rathillet, 
less fortunate, was taken, and the murder of Sharp was 
avenged on him with unspeakable cruelties. The Rem- 
nant now formed itself into organised and armed so- 
cieties; their conduct made them feared and detested 
by the majority of the preachers, who longed for a 



236 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

quiet life, not for the establishment of a Mosaic com- 
monwealth, and " the execution of righteous judg- 
ments " on " malignants." Cargill was now the leader 
of the Remnant, and Cargill, in a conventicle at Tor- 
wood, of his own authority excommunicated the king, 
the Duke of York, Lauderdale, Rothes, Dalziel, and 
Mackenzie, whom he accused of leniency to witches, 
among other sins. The Government apparently 
thought that excommunication, to the mind of Cargill 
and his adherents meant outlawry, and that outlawry 
might mean the assassination of the excommunicated. 
Cargill was hunted, and (July 12, 1681) was captured 
by " wild Bonshaw." It was believed by his party that 
the decision to execute Cargill was carried by the vote 
of Argyll, in the Privy Council, and that Cargill told 
Rothes (who had signed the Covenant with him in their 
youth) that Rothes would be the first to die. Rothes 
died on July 26, Cargill was hanged on July 27. 

On the following day James, Duke of York, as Royal 
Commissioner, opened the first Parliament since 1673- 
1674. James secured an Act making the right of suc- 
cession to the Crown independent of differences of reli- 
gion ; he, of course, was a Catholic. The Test Act was 
also passed, a thing so self-contradictory in its terms 
that any man might take it whose sense of humour 
overcame his sense of honour. Many refused, includ- 
ing a number of the conformist ministers. Argyll took 
the Test " as far as it is consistent with itself and with 
the Protestant religion." 

Argyll, the son of the executed marquis, had recov- 
ered his lands, and acquired the title of Earl mainly 



FLIGHT OF ARGYLL 237 

through the help of Lauderdale. During the religious 
troubles from 1660 onwards he had taken no great 
part, but had sided with the Government, and approved 
of the torture of preachers. But what ruined him now 
(though the facts have been little noticed) was his dis- 
regard of the claims of his creditors, and his obtaining 
the lands of the Macleans in Mull and Morven, in dis- 
charge of an enormous debt of the Maclean chief to 
the marquis executed in 1661. The Macleans had 
vainly attempted to prove that the debt was vastly 
inflated by familiar processes, and had resisted in arms 
the invasion of the Campbells. They had friends in 
Seaforth, the Mackenzies, and in the Earl of Errol and 
other nobles. 

These men, especially Mackenzie of Tarbet, an astute 
intriguer, seized their chance when Argyll took the 
Test " with a qualification," and though, at first, he 
satisfied and was reconciled to the Duke of York, they 
won over the duke, accused Argyll to the king, brought 
him before a jury, and had him condemned of treason 
and incarcerated. The object may have been to intimi- 
date him, and destroy his almost royal power in the 
west and the islands. In any case after a trial for 
treason, in which one vote settled his doom, he escaped 
in disguise as a footman (perhaps by collusion, as was 
suspected), fled to England, conspired there with Scot- 
tish exiles and a Covenanting refugee, Mr. Veitch, and, 
as Charles would not allow him to be searched for, he 
easily escaped to Holland. (For details, see my book, 
' Sir George Mackenzie.') 

It was, in fact, clan hatred that dragged down 



238 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Argyll. His condemnation was an infamous perversion 
of justice, but as Charles would not allow him to be 
captured in London, it is most improbable that he 
would have permitted the unjust capital sentence to be 
carried out. The escape was probably collusive, and 
the sole result of these intricate iniquities was to create 
for the Government an enemy who would have been dan- 
gerous if he had been trusted by the extreme Presby- 
terians. In England no less than in Scotland the su- 
preme and odious injustice of Argyll's trial excited 
general indignation. The Earl of Aberdeen (Gordon 
of Haddo) was now Chancellor, and Queensberry was 
Treasurer for a while; both were intrigued against at 
Court by the Earl of Perth and his brother, later Lord 
Melfort, and probably by far the worst of all the 
knaves of the Restoration. 

Increasing outrages by the Remnant, now headed by 
the Rev. Mr. James Renwick, a very young man, led 
to more furious repression, especially as in 1683 Gov- 
ernment detected a double plot — the wilder English aim 
being to raise the rabble and to take or slay Charles 
and his brother at the Rye House; while the more 
respectable conspirators, English and Scots, were be- 
lieved to be acquainted with, though not engaged in, 
this design. The Rev. Mr. Carstares was going and 
coming between Argyll and the exiles in Holland and 
the intriguers at home. They intended as usual first 
to surprise Edinburgh Castle. In England, Algernon 
Sidney, Lord Russell, and others were arrested, while 
Baillie of Jerviswoode and Ca*rstares were appre- 
hended — Carstares in England. He was sent to Scot- 



"THE APOLOGETICAL DECLARATION" 239 

land, where he could be tortured. The trial of Jervis- 
woode was if possible more unjust than even the 
common run of these affairs, and he was executed (De- 
cember 24, 1684). 

The conspiracy was, in fact, a very serious affair: 
Carstares was confessedly aware of its criminal aspect, 
and was in the closest confidence of the ministers of 
William of Orange. What his dealings were with them 
in later years he would never divulge. But it is clear 
that if the plotters slew Charles and James the hour 
had struck for the Dutch deliverer's appearance. If 
we describe the Rye House Plot as aiming merely at 
" the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne," 
we shut our eyes to evidence and make ourselves inca- 
pable of understanding the events. There were plot- 
ters of every degree and rank, and they were intriguing 
with Argyll, and, through Carstares who knew, though 
he refused a part in the murder plot, were in touch 
at once with Argyll and the intimates of William of 
Orange. 

Meanwhile " the hill men," the adherents of Ren- 
wick, in October 1684, declared a war of assassination 
against their opponents, and announced that they would 
try malignants in courts of their own. Their manifesto 
(" The Apologetical Declaration ") caused an extraor- 
dinary measure of repression. A test — the abjuration 
of the criminal parts of Renwick's declaration — was to 
be offered by military authority to all and sundry. Re- 
fusal to abjure entailed military execution. The test 
was only obnoxious to sincere fanatics; but among 
them must have been hundreds of persons who had no 



240 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

criminal designs, and merely deemed it a point of hon- 
our not to " homologate " any act of a Government 
which was corrupt, prelatic, and unholy. 

Later victims of this view of duty were Margaret 
Lauchleson and Margaret Wilson — an old woman and 
a young girl — cruelly drowned by the local authorities 
at Wigtown (May 1685). A myth represents Claver- 
house as having been present. The shooting of John 
Brown, " the Christian Carrier," by Claverhouse in 
the previous week was an affair of another character. 
Claverhouse did not exceed his orders, and ammunition 
and treasonable papers were in Brown's possession; he 
was also sheltering a red-handed rebel. Brown was not 
shot merely " because he was a Nonconformist," nor 
was he shot by the hand of Claverhouse. 

These incidents of " the killing time " were in the 
reign of James II. ; Charles II. had died, to the sincere 
grief of most of his subjects, on February 2, 1685. 
" Lecherous and treacherous " as he was, he was hu- 
morous and good-humoured. The expected invasion 
of Scotland by Argyll, of England by Monmouth, did 
not encourage the Government to use respective lenity 
in the Covenanting region, from Lanarkshire to 
Galloway. 

Argyll, who sailed from Holland on May 2, had a 
council of Lowlanders who thwarted him. His interests 
were in his own principality, but he found it occupied 
by Atholl and his clansmen, and the cadets of his own 
House as a rule would not rally to him. The Low- 
landers with him, Sir Patrick Hume, Sir John Cochrane, 
and the rest, wished to move south and join hands with 



TH»E COVENANTERS PUT DOWN 241 

the Remnant in the west and in Galloway; but the 
Remnant distrusted the sudden religious zeal of Argyll, 
and were cowed by Claverhouse. The coasts were 
watched by Government vessels of war, and when, after 
vain movements round about his own castle, Inverary, 
Argyll was obliged by his Lowlanders to move on 
Glasgow, he was checked at every turn; the leaders, 
weary and lost in the marshes, scattered from Kil- 
patrick on Clyde; Argyll crossed the river, and was 
captured by servants of Sir John Shaw of Greenock. 
He was not put to trial nor to torture; he was exe- 
cuted on the verdict of 1681. About 200 suspected 
persons were lodged by Government in Dunottar Castle 
at the time and treated with abominable cruelty. 

The Covenanters were now effectually put down, 
though Renwick was not taken and hanged till 1688. 
The preachers were anxious for peace and quiet, and 
were bitterly hostile to Renwick. The Covenant was a 
dead letter as far as power to do mischief was con- 
cerned. It was not persecution of the Kirk, but de- 
mand for toleration of Catholics and a manifest desire 
to restore the Church, that in two years lost James his 
kingdoms. 

On April 29, 1686, James's message to the Scots 
Parliament asked toleration for " our innocent sub- 
jects " the Catholics. He had substituted Perth's 
brother, now entitled Earl of Melfort, for Queensberry ; 
Perth was now Chancellor ; both men had adopted their 
king's religion, and the infamous Melfort can hardly 
be supposed to have done so honestly. Their families 
lost all in the event except their faith. With the re- 



242 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

quest for toleration James sent promises of free trade 
with England, and he asked for no supplies. Perth had 
introduced Catholic vestments and furnishings in Holy- 
rood chapel, which provoked a No Popery riot. Par- 
liament would not permit toleration; James removed 
many of the Council and filled their places with Catho- 
lics. Sir George Mackenzie's conscience " dirled " ; he 
refused to vote for toleration and he lost the Lord 
Advocateship, being superseded by Sir James Dalrym- 
ple, an old Covenanting opponent of Claverhouse in 
Galloway. 

• In August, James, by prerogative, did what the Es- 
tates would not do, and he deprived the Archbishop of 
Glasgow and the Bishop of Dunkeld of their sees: 
though a Catholic, he was the king-pope of a Prot- 
estant church! In a decree of July 1687 he extended 
toleration to the Kirk, and a meeting of preachers at 
Edinburgh expressed " a deep sense of your Majesty's 
gracious and surprising favour." The Kirk was in- 
deed broken, and, when the Revolution came, was at 
last ready for a compromise from which the Cove- 
nants were omitted. On February 17, 1688, Mr. Ren- 
wick was hanged at Edinburgh : he had been prosecuted 
by Dalrymple. On the same day Mackenzie super- 
seded Dalrymple as Lord Advocate. 

After the birth of the White Rose Prince of Wales 
(June 10, 1688), Scotland, like England, apprehended 
that a Catholic king would be followed by a Catholic 
son. The various contradictory lies about the child's 
birth flourished, all the more because James ventured 
to select the magistrates of the royal burghs. It be- 



SCOTTISH ARMY DISBANDED 243 

came certain that the Prince of Orange would invade, 
and Melfort madly withdrew the regular troops, with 
Claverhouse (now Viscount Dundee), to aid in resisting 
William in England, though Balcarres proposed a safer 
way of holding down the English northern counties by 
volunteers, the Highland clans, and new levies. Thus 
the Privy Council in Scotland were left at the mercy 
of the populace. 

Of the Scottish army in England all were disbanded 
when James fled to France, except a handful of cav- 
alry, whom Dundee kept with him. Perth fled from 
Edinburgh, but was taken and held a prisoner for four 
years ; the town train-band, with the mob and some 
Cameronians, took Holyrood, slaying such of the guard 
as they did not imprison ; " many died of their wounds 
and hunger." The chapel and Catholic houses were 
sacked, and gangs of the armed Cameronian societies 
went about in the south-west, rabbling, robbing, and 
driving away ministers of the Episcopalian sort. Atholl 
was in power in Edinburgh ; in London, where James's 
Scots friends met, the Duke of Hamilton was made 
President of Council, and power was left till the as- 
sembling of a Convention at Edinburgh (March 1689) 
in the hands of William. 

In Edinburgh Castle the wavering Duke of Gordon 
was induced to remain by Dundee and Balcarres ; while 
Dundee proposed to call a Jacobite convention in Stir- 
ling. Melfort induced James to send a letter contrary 
to the desires of his party; Atholl, who had promised 
to join them, broke away ; the life of Dundee was threat- 
ened by the fanatics, and on March 18, seeing his party 



244 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

headless and heartless, Dundee rode north, going 
"wherever might lead him the shade of Montrose." 

Mackay now brought to Edinburgh regiments from 
Holland, which overawed the Jacobites, and he secured 
for William the key of the north, the castle of Stirling. 
With Hamilton as President, the Convention, with only 
four adverse votes, declared against James and his son ; 
and Hamilton (April 3) proclaimed at the cross the 
reign of William and Mary. The claim of rights was 
passed and declared Episcopacy intolerable. Balcarres 
was thrown into prison: on May 11 William took the 
coronation oath for Scotland, merely protesting that 
he would not " root out heretics," as the oath enjoined. 

This was " the end o' an auld sang," the end of the 
Stuart dynasty, and of the equally " divine rights " of 
kings and of preachers. 

In a sketch it is impossible to convey any idea of the 
sufferings of Scotland, at least of Covenanting Scot- 
land, under the Restoration. There were contest, un- 
rest, and dragoonings, and the quartering of a brutal 
and licentious soldiery on suspected persons. Law, 
especially since 1679, had been twisted for the convic- 
tion of persons whom the administration desired to rob. 
The greed and corruption of the rulers, from Lauder- 
dale, his wife, and his brother Haltoun, to Perth and 
his brother, the Earl of Melfort, whose very title was 
the name of an unjustly confiscated estate, are almost 
inconceivable. 1 Few of the foremost men in power, ex- 
cept Sir George Mackenzie and Claverhouse, were free 

1 Many disgusting details may be read in the author's * Life of 
Sir George Mackenzie.' 



TORTURE 245 

from personal profligacy of every sort. Claverhouse 
has left on record his aversion to severities against the 
peasantry; he was for prosecuting such gentry as the 
Dalrymples. As constable of Dundee he refused to 
inflict capital punishment on petty offenders, and 
Mackenzie went as far as he dared in opposing the 
ferocities of the inquisition of witches. But in cases 
of alleged treason Mackenzie knew no mercy. 

Torture, legal in Scotland, was used with barbarism 
unprecedented there after each plot or rising, to ex- 
tract secrets which, save in one or two cases like that 
of Carstares, the victims did not possess. They were 
peasants, preachers, and a few country gentlemen: the 
nobles had no inclination to suffer for the cause of the 
Covenants. The Covenants continued to be the idols 
of the societies of Cameronians, and of many preachers 
who were no longer inclined to die for these docu- 
ments, — the expression of such strange doctrines, the 
causes of so many sorrows and of so many martyrdoms. 
However little we may sympathise with the doctrines, 
none the less the sufferers were idealists, and, no less 
than Montrose, preferred honour to life. 

With all its sins, the Restoration so far pulverised 
the pretensions which, since 1560, the preachers had 
made, that William of Orange was not obliged to re- 
new the conflict with the spiritual sons of Knox and 
Andrew Melville. 

This fact is not so generally recognised as it might 
be. It is therefore proper to quote the corroborative 
opinion of the learned Historiographer-Royal of Scot- 
land, Professor Hume Brown. " By concession and re- 



246 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

pression the once mighty force of Scottish Presbyteri- 
anism had been broken. Most deadly of the weapons in 
the accomplishment of this result had been the three 
Acts of Indulgence which had successively cut so deep 
into the ranks of uniformity. In succumbing to the 
threats and promises of the Government, the Indulged 
ministers had undoubtedly compromised the funda- 
mental principles of Presbyterianism. . . . The com- 
pliance of these ministers was, in truth, the first and 
necessary step towards that religious and political 
compromise which the force of circumstances was 
gradually imposing on the Scottish people," and " the 
example of the Indulged ministers, who composed the 
great mass of the Presbyterian clergy, was of the most 
potent effect in substituting the idea of toleration for 
that of the religious absolutism of Knox and Melville." 1 
It may be added that the pretensions of Knox and 
Melville and all their followers were no essential part 
of Presbyterial Church government, but were merely 
the continuation or survival of the clerical claims 
of apostolic authority, as enforced by such popes as 
Hildebrand and such martyrs as St. Thomas of 
Canterbury. 

1 Hume Brown, ii. 414, 415. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



WILLIAM AND MARY 



While Claverhouse hovered in the north the Con- 
vention (declared to be a Parliament by William on 
June 5) took on, for the first time in Scotland since the 
reign of Charles L, the aspect of an English Parlia- 
ment, and demanded English constitutional freedom of 
debate. The Secretary in Scotland was William, Earl 
of Melville ; that hereditary waverer, the Duke of Ham- 
ilton, was Royal Commissioner; but some official sup- 
porters of William, especially Sir James and Sir John 
Dalrymple, were criticised and thwarted by " the 
club " of more extreme Liberals. They were led by the 
Lowland ally who had vexed Argyll, Hume of Pol- 
warth; and by Montgomery of Skelmorley, who, dis- 
appointed in his desire of place, soon engaged in a 
Jacobite plot. 

The club wished to hasten the grant of parliamen- 
tary liberties which William was anxious not to give; 
and to take vengeance on officials such as Sir James 
Dalrymple, and his son, Sir John, now Lord Advo- 
cate, as he had been under James II. To these two 
men, foes of Claverhouse, William clung while he could. 
The council obtained, but did not need to use, permis- 
sion to torture Jacobite prisoners, " Cavaliers " as at 
this time they were styled ; but Chieseley of Dairy, who 

247 



248 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

murdered Sir George Lockhart, President of the Col- 
lege of Justice, was tortured. 

The advanced Liberal Acts which were passed did 
not receive the touch of the sceptre from Hamilton, 
William's Commissioner : thus they were " vetoed," and 
of no effect. The old packed committee, " The Lords 
of the Articles," was denounced as a grievance; the 
king was to be permitted to appoint no officers of State 
without Parliament's approbation. Hamilton offered 
compromises, for William clung to " the Articles " ; 
but he abandoned them in the following year, and 
thenceforth till the Union (1707) the Scottish was 
" a Free Parliament." Various measures of legisla- 
tion for the Kirk — some to emancipate it as in its palmy 
days, some to keep it from meddling in politics — were 
proposed; some measures to abolish, some to retain lay 
patronage of livings, were mooted. The advanced 
party for a while put a stop to the appointment of 
judges, but in August came news of the Viscount 
Dundee in the north which terrified parliamentary 
politicians. 

Edinburgh Castle had been tamely yielded by the 
Duke of Gordon; Balcarres, the associate of Dundee, 
had been imprisoned; but Dundee himself, after being 
declared a rebel, in April raised the standard of King 
James. As against him the Whigs relied on Mackay, 
a brave officer who had been in Dutch service, and 
now commanded regiments of the Scots Brigade of 
Holland. Mackay pursued Dundee, as Baillie had pur- 
sued Montrose, through the north: at Inverness, Dun- 
dee picked up some Macdonalds under Keppoch, but 



DUNDEE COLLECTS TROOPS 249 

Keppoch was not satisfactory, being something of a 
freebooter. The viscount now rode to the centre of 
his hopes, to the Macdonalds of Glengarry, the Cam- 
erons of Lochiel, and the Macleans who had been robbed 
of their lands by the Earl of Argyll, executed in 1685. 
Dundee summoned them to Lochiel's house on Loch 
Arkaig for May 18; he visited Atholl and Badenoch; 
found a few mounted men as recruits at Dundee; re- 
turned through the wilds to Lochaber, and sent round 
that old summons to a rising, the Fiery Cross, charred 
and dipped in a goat's blood. 

Much time was spent in preliminary manoeuvring 
and sparring between Mackay, now reinforced by Eng- 
lish regulars, and Dundee, who for a time disbanded 
his levies, while Mackay went to receive fresh forces 
and to consult the Government at Edinburgh. He de- 
cided to march to the west and bridle the clans by 
erecting a strong fort at Inverlochy, where Montrose 
routed Argyll. A stronghold at Inverlochy menaced 
the Macdonalds to the north, and the Camerons in 
Lochaber, and, southwards, the Stewarts in Appin. But 
to reach Inverlochy Mackay had to march up the Tay, 
past Blair Atholl, and so westward through very wild 
mountainous country. To oppose him Dundee had col- 
lected 4000 of the clansmen, and awaited ammunition 
and men from James, then in Ireland. By the advice 
of the great Lochiel, a man over seventy but miracu- 
lously athletic, Dundee decided to let the clans fight 
in their old way, — a rush, a volley at close quarters, 
and then the claymore. By June 28 Dundee had re- 
ceived no aid from James, — of money " we have not 



250 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

twenty pounds " ; and he was between the Earl of 
Argyll (son of the martyr of 1685) and Mackay with 
his 4000 foot and eight troops of horse. 

On July 23 Dundee seized the castle of Blair Atholl, 
which had been the base of Montrose in his campaigns, 
and was the key of the country between the Tay and 
Lochaber. The Atholl clans, Murrays and Stewarts, 
breaking away from the son of their chief, the fickle 
Marquis of Atholl, were led by Stewart of Ballechin, 
but did not swell Dundee's force at the moment. From 
James, Dundee now received but a battalion of half- 
starved Irishmen, under the futile General Cannon. 

On July 27, at Blair, Dundee learned that Mackay's 
force had already entered the steep and narrow pass of 
Killiecrankie, where the road skirted the brawling wa- 
ters of the Garry. Dundee had not time to defend the 
pass ; he marched his men from Blair, keeping the 
heights, while Mackay emerged from the gorge, and 
let his forces rest on the wide level haugh beside the 
Garry, under the house of Runraurie, now called Ur- 
rard, with the deep and rapid river in their rear. On 
this haugh the tourist sees the tall standing stone 
which, since 1735 at least, has been known as " Dun- 
dee's stone." From the haugh rises a steep acclivity, 
leading to the plateau where the house of Runraurie 
stood. Mackay feared that Dundee would occupy this 
plateau, and that the fire thence would break up his 
own men on the haugh below. He therefore seized the 
plateau, which was an unfortunate manoeuvre. He was 
so superior in numbers that both of his wings extended 
beyond Dundee's, who had but forty ill-horsed gentle- 



DEATH OF DUNDEE 251 

men by way of cavalry. After distracting Mackay by 
movements along the heights, as if to cut off his com- 
munications with the south, Dundee, who had resisted 
the prayers of the chiefs that he would be sparing of 
his person, gave the word to charge as the sun sank 
behind the western hills. Rushing down hill, under 
heavy fire and losing many men, the clans, when they 
came to the shock, swept the enemy from the plateau, 
drove them over the declivity, forced many to attempt 
crossing the Garry, where they were drowned, and fol- 
lowed, slaying, through the pass. Half of Hastings' 
regiment, untouched by the Highland charge, and all 
of Leven's men, stood their ground, and were standing 
there when sixteen of Dundee's horse returned from 
the pursuit. Mackay, who had lost his army, stole 
across the Garry with this remnant and made for 
Stirling. He knew not that Dundee lay on the field, 
dying in the arms of Victory. Precisely when and in 
what manner Dundee was slain is unknown; there is 
even a fair presumption, from letters of the English 
Government, that he was murdered by two men sent 
from England on some very secret mission. When last 
seen by his men, Dundee was plunged in the battle 
smoke, sword in hand, in advance of his horse. 

When the Whigs — terrified by the defeat and expect- 
ing Dundee at Stirling with the clans and the cavaliers 
of the Lowlands — heard of his fall, their sorrow was 
changed into rejoicing. The cause of King James was 
mortally wounded by the death of " the glory of the 
Grahams," who alone could lead and keep together a 
Highland host. Deprived of his leadership and dis- 



252 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

trustful of his successor, General Cannon, the clans 
gradually left the royal standard. The Cameronian 
regiment, recruited from the young men of the organ- 
ised societies, had been ordered to occupy Dunkeld. 
Here they were left isolated, " in the air," by Mackay 
or his subordinates, and on August 21 these raw re- 
cruits, under Colonel Cleland, who had fought at Drum- 
clog, had to receive the attack of the Highlanders. 
Cleland had fortified the abbey church and the 
" castle," and his Cameronians fired from behind walls 
and from loopholes with such success that Cannon 
called off the clansmen, or could not bring them to a 
second attack: both versions are given. Cleland fell 
in the fight ; the clans disbanded, and Mackay occupied 
the castle of Blair. 

Three weeks later the Cameronians, being unpaid, 
mutinied; and Ross, Annandale, and Polwarth, urging 
their demands for constitutional rights, threw the Low- 
lands into a ferment. Crawford, whose manner of 
speech was sanctimonious, was evicting from their par- 
ishes ministers who remained true to Episcopacy, and 
would not pray for William and Mary. Polwarth now 
went to London with an address to these sovereigns 
framed by " the Club," the party of liberty. But the 
other leaders of that party, Annandale, Ross, and 
Montgomery of Skelmorley, all of them eager for place 
and office, entered into a conspiracy of intrigue with 
the Jacobites for James's restoration. In February 
1690 the Club was distracted ; and to Melville, as Com- 
missioner in the Scottish Parliament, William gave 
orders that the Acts for re-establishing Presbytery and 



THE COVENANT DROPPED 253 

abolishing lay patronage of livings were to be passed. 
Montgomery was obliged to bid yet higher for the 
favour of the more extreme preachers and devotees, — 
but he failed. In April the Lords of the Articles were 
abolished at last, and freedom of parliamentary debate 
was thus secured. The Westminster Confession was 
reinstated, and in May, after the last remnants of a 
Jacobite force in the north had been surprised and 
scattered or captured by Sir Thomas Livingstone at 
Cromdale Haugh (May 1), the alliance of Jacobites 
and of the Club broke down, and the leaders of the 
Club saved themselves by playing the part of informers. 

The new Act regarding the Kirk permitted the hold- 
ing of Synods and General Assemblies, to be summoned 
by permission of William or of the Privy Council, with 
a Royal Commissioner present to restrain the preachers 
from meddling, as a body, with secular politics. The 
Kirk was to be organised by the " Sixty Bishops," the 
survivors of the ministers ejected in 1663. The 
benefices of ejected Episcopalian conformists were de- 
clared to be vacant. Lay patronage was annulled: the 
congregations had the right to approve or disapprove 
of presentees. But the Kirk was deprived of her old 
weapon, the attachment of civil penalties (that is, prac- 
tical outlawry) to her sentences of excommunication 
(July 19, 1690). The Covenant was silently dropped. 

Thus ended, practically, the war between Kirk and 
State which had raged for nearly a hundred and twenty 
years. The cruel torturing of Nevile Payne, an Eng- 
lish Jacobite taken in Scotland, showed that the new 
sovereigns and Privy Council retained the passions 



254 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

and methods of the old, but this was the last occa- 
sion of judicial torture for political offences in Scot- 
land. Payne was silent, but was illegally imprisoned 
till his death. 

The proceedings of the restored General Assembly 
were awaited with anxiety by the Government. The 
extremists of the Remnant, the " Cameronians," sent 
deputies to the Kirk. They were opposed to ac- 
knowledging sovereigns who were " the head of the 
Prelatics " in England, and they, not being supported 
by the Assembly, remained apart from the Kirk and 
true to the Covenants. 

Much had passed which William disliked — the aboli- 
tion of patronage, the persecution of Episcopalians — 
and Melville, in 1691, was removed by the king from 
the Commissionership. 

The Highlands were still unsettled. In June 1691 
Breadalbane, at heart a Jacobite, attempted to appease 
the chiefs by promises of money in settlement of vari- 
ous feuds, especially that of the dispossessed Macleans 
against the occupant of their lands, Argyll. Breadal- 
bane was known by Hill, the commander of Fort Wil- 
liam at Inverlochy, to be dealing between the clans and 
James, as well as between William and the clans. Wil- 
liam, then campaigning in Flanders, was informed of 
this fact, thought it of no importance, and accepted 
a truce from July 1 to October 1 with Buchan, who 
commanded such feeble forces as still stood for James 
in the north. At the same time William threatened the 
clans, in the usual terms, with " fire and sword," if the 
chiefs did not take the oaths to his Government by 



DALRYMPLE 255 

January 1, 1692. Money and titles under the rank of 
earldoms were to be offered to Macdonald of Sleat, 
Maclean of Dowart, Lochiel, Glengarry, and Clan- 
ranald, if they would come in. All declined the bait — 
if Breadalbane really fished with it. It is plain, con- 
trary to Lord Macaulay's statement, that Sir John 
Dalrymple, William's trusted man for Scotland, at this 
time hoped for Breadalbane's success in pacifying the 
clans. But Dalrymple, by December 1691, wrote, " I 
think the Clan Donell must be rooted out, and Lochiel." 
He could not mean that he hoped to massacre so large 
a part of the population! He probably meant by 
" punitive expeditions " in the modern phrase — by 
"fire and sword," in the style current then — to break 
up the recalcitrants. Meanwhile it was Dalrymple's 
hope to settle ancient quarrels about the " superiori- 
ties " of Argyll over the Camerons, and the question of 
compensation for the lands reft by the Argyll family 
from the Macleans. 

Before December 31, in fear of " fire and sword," 
the chiefs submitted, except the greatest, Glengarry, 
and the least in power, Maclan or Macdonald, with his 
narrow realm of Glencoe, whence his men were used to 
plunder the cattle of their powerful neighbour, Bread- 
albane. Dalrymple now desired not peace, but the 
sword. By January 9, 1692, Dalrymple, in London, 
heard that Glencoe had come in (he had accidentally 
failed to come in by January 1), and Dalrymple was 
"sorry." By January 11 Dalrymple knew that Glen- 
coe had not taken the oath before January 1, and re- 
joiced in the chance to " root out that damnable sect." 



256 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

In fact, in the end of December, Glencoe had gone to 
Fort William to take the oaths before Colonel Hill, but 
found that he must do so before the sheriff of the shire 
at remote Inverary. Various accidents of weather de- 
layed him; the sheriff also was not at Inverary when 
Glencoe arrived, but administered the oaths on Janu- 
ary 6. The document was taken to Edinburgh, where 
Lord Stair, Dalrymple's father, and others caused it 
to be deleted. Glengarry was still unsworn, but Glen- 
garry was too strong to be " rooted out " ; William 
ordered his commanding officer, Livingstone, " to extir- 
pate that sect of thieves," the Glencoe men (Janu- 
ary 16). On the same day Dalrymple sent down or- 
ders to hem in the Maclans, and to guard all the passes, 
by land or water, from their glen. Of the actual 
method of massacre employed Dalrymple may have 
been ignorant ; but orders " from Court " to " spare 
none," and to take no prisoners, were received by Liv- 
ingstone on January 23. 

On February 1, Campbell of Glenlyon, with 120 men, 
was hospitably received by Maclan, whose son, Alex- 
ander, had married Glenlyon's niece. On February 12, 
Hill sent 400 of his Inverlochy garrison to Glencoe to 
join hands with 400 of Argyll's regiment, under Major 
Duncanson. These troops were to guard the southern 
passes out of Glencoe, while Hamilton was to sweep the 
passes from the north. 

At 5 a.m. on February 13 the soldier-guests of Mac- 
Ian began to slay and plunder. Men, women, and chil- 
dren were shot or bayoneted; 1000 head of cattle were 
driven away; but Hamilton arrived too late. Though 



THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE 257 

the aged chief had been shot at once, his sons took to 
the hills, and the greater part of the population es- 
caped with their lives, thanks to Hamilton's dilatori- 
ness. " All I regret is that any of the sect got away," 
wrote Dalrymple on March 5, " and there is necessity 
to prosecute them to the utmost." News had already 
reached London " that they are murdered in their 
beds." The newspapers, however, were silenced, and 
the story was first given to Europe in April by the 
' Paris Gazette.' The crime was unprecedented : it had 
no precedent, admits of no apology. Many an expedi- 
tion of " fire and sword " had occurred, but never had 
there been a midnight massacre " under trust " of hosts 
by guests. King William, on March 6, went off to his 
glorious wars on the Continent, probably hoping to 
hear that the fugitive Maclans were still being " prose- 
cuted " — if, indeed, he thought of them at all. But by 
October they were received into his peace. 

William was more troubled by the General Assembly, 
which refused to take oaths of allegiance to him and 
his wife, and actually appointed a date for an Assem- 
bly without his consent. When he gave it, it was on 
condition that the members should take the oaths of 
allegiance. They refused: it was the old deadlock, but 
William at the last moment withdrew from the imposi- 
tion of oaths of allegiance — moved, it is said, by Mr. 
Carstares, " Cardinal Carstares," who had been privy 
to the Rye House Plot. Under Queen Anne, however, 
the conscientious preachers were compelled to take the 
oaths like mere laymen. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

DARIEN 

The Scottish Parliament of May-July 1695, held while 
William was abroad, saw the beginning of evils for 
Scotland. The affair of Glencoe was examined into by 
a Commission, headed by Tweeddale, William's Com- 
missioner: several Judges sat in it. Their report 
cleared William himself: Dalrymple, it was found, had 
" exceeded his instructions." Hill was exonerated. 
Hamilton, who commanded the detachment that arrived 
too late, fled the country. William was asked to send 
home for trial Duncanson and other butchers who were 
with his army. The king was also invited to deal with 
Dalrymple as he thought fit. He thought fit to give 
Dalrymple an indemnity, and made him Viscount Stair, 
with a grant of money, but did not retain him in office. 
He did not send the subaltern butchers home for trial. 
Many years later, in 1745, the Maclans insisted on 
acting as guards of the house and family of the de- 
scendant of Campbell of Glenlyon, the guest and mur- 
derer of the chief of Glencoe. 

Perhaps by way of a sop to the Scots, William al- 
lowed an Act for the Establishment of a Scottish East 
India Company to be passed on June 20, 1695. He 
afterwards protested that in this matter he had been 
" badly served," probably meaning " misinformed." 
The result was the Darien Expedition, a great financial 

258 



THE DARIEN ADVENTURE 259 

disaster for Scotland, and a terrible grievance. Hith- 
erto since the Union of the Crowns all Scottish efforts 
to found trading companies, as in England, had been 
wrecked on English jealousy: there had always been, 
and to this new East India Company there was, a rival, 
a pre-existing English company. Scottish Acts for 
protection of home industries were met by English re- 
taliation in a war of tariffs. Scotland had prohibited 
the exportation of her raw materials, such as wool, but 
was cut off from English and other foreign markets 
for her cloths. The Scots were more successful in 
secret and unlegalised trading with their kinsmen in the 
American colonies. 

The Scottish East India Company's aim was to sell 
Scottish goods in many places, India for example; and 
it was secretly meant to found a factory and central 
mart on the isthmus of Panama. For these ends cap- 
ital was withdrawn from the new and unsuccessful 
manufacturing companies. The great scheme was the 
idea of William Paterson (born 1658), the far-travelled 
and financially speculative son of a farmer in Dumfries- 
shire. He was the " projector," or one of the pro- 
jectors, of the Bank of England of 1694, investing 
£2000. He kept the Darien part of his scheme for an 
East India Company in the background, and it seems 
that William, when he granted a patent to that com- 
pany, knew nothing of this design to settle in or near 
the Panama isthmus, which was quite clearly within 
the Spanish sphere of influence. When the philosopher 
John Locke heard of the scheme, he wished England 
to steal the idea and seize a port in Darien; it thus 



260 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

appears that he too was unaware that to do so was to 
inflict an insult and injury on Spain. There is reason 
to suppose that the grant of the patent to the East 
India Company was obtained by bribing some Scottish 
politician or politicians unnamed, though one name is 
not beyond probable conjecture. 

In any case Paterson admitted English capitalists, 
who took up half of the shares, as the Act of Patent 
permitted them to do. By December, William was 
writing that he " had been ill-served by some of my 
Ministers." He had no notice of the details of the Act 
of Patent till he had returned to England, and found 
English capitalists and the English Parliament in a 
fury. The Act committed William to interposing his 
authority if the ships of the company were detained by 
foreign powers, and gave the adventurers leave to take 
" reparation " by force from their assailants (this they 
later did when they captured in the Firth of Forth an 
English vessel, the Worcester). 

On the opening of the books of the new company in 
London (October 1695) there had been a panic, and a 
fall of twenty points in the shares of the English East 
India Company. The English Parliament had ad- 
dressed William in opposition to the Scots Company. 
The English subscribers of half the paid-up capital 
were terrorised, and sold out. Later, Hamburg invest- 
ments were cancelled through William's influence. All 
Lowland Scotland hurried to invest — in the dark — for 
the Darien part of the scheme was practically a secret : 
it was vaguely announced that there was to be a set- 
tlement somewhere, " in Africa or the Indies, or both." 



SCOTS AND SPANIARDS CLASH 261 

Materials of trade, such as wigs, combs, Bibles, fish- 
hooks, and kid-gloves, were accumulated. Offices were 
built — later used as an asylum for pauper lunatics. 

When, in July 1697, the secret of Panama came out, 
the English Council of Trade examined Dampier, the 
voyager, and (September) announced that the terri- 
tory had never been Spain's, and that England ought 
to anticipate Scotland by seizing Golden Island and the 
port on the mainland. 

In July 1698 the Council of the intended Scots 
colony was elected, bought three ships and two tenders, 
and despatched 1200 settlers with two preachers, but 
with most inadequate provisions, and flour as bad as 
that paid to Assynt for the person of Montrose. On 
October 30, in the Gulf of Darien they found natives 
who spoke Spanish; they learned that the nearest gold 
mines were in Spanish hands, and that the chiefs were 
carrying Spanish insignia of office. By February 1699 
the Scots and Spaniards were exchanging shots. Pres- 
ently a Scottish ship, cruising in search of supplies, 
was seized by the Spanish at Carthagena; the men lay 
in irons at Seville till 1700. Spain complained to Wil- 
liam, and the Scots seized a merchant ship. The Eng- 
lish Governor of Jamaica forbade his people, by virtue 
of a letter addressed by the English Government to all 
the colonies, to grant supplies to the starving Scots, 
most of whom sailed away from the colony in June, and 
suffered terrible things by sea and land. Paterson re- 
turned to Scotland. A new expedition which left Leith 
on May 12, 1699, found at Darien some Scots in two 
ships, and remained on the scene, distracted by quar- 



262 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

rels, till February 1700, when Campbell of Fonab, sent 
with provisions in the Speedy Return from Scotland, 
arrived to find the Spaniards assailing the adventurers. 
He cleared the Spaniards out of their fort in fifteen 
minutes, but the Colonial Council learned that Spain 
was launching a small but adequate armada against 
them. After an honourable resistance the garrison ca- 
pitulated, and marched out with colours flying (March 
30). This occurred just when Scotland was celebrat- 
ing the arrival of the news of Fonab's gallant feat of 
arms. 

At home the country was full of discontent: Wil- 
liam's agent at Hamburg had prevented foreigners 
from investing in the Scots company. English colo- 
nists had been forbidden to aid the Scottish adven- 
turers. Two hundred thousand pounds, several ships, 
and many lives had been lost. " It is very like 1641," 
wrote an onlooker, so fierce were the passions that 
raged against William. The news of the surrender of 
the colonists increased the indignation. The king re- 
fused (November 1700) to gratify the Estates by 
regarding the Darien colony as a legal enterprise. To 
do so was to incur war with Spain and the anger of 
his English subjects. Yet the colony had been legally 
founded in accordance with the terms of the Act of 
Patent. While the Scots dwelt on this fact, William 
replied that the colony being extinct, circumstances 
were altered. The Estates voted that Darien was a 
lawful colony, and (1701) in an address to the Crown 
demanded compensation for the nation's financial losses. 
William replied with expressions of sympathy and 



DIFFICULTIES OF UNION 263 

hopes that the two kingdoms would consider a scheme 
of Union. A Bill for Union brought in through the 
English Lords was rejected by the English Commons. 

There was hardly an alternative between Union and 
War between the two nations. War there would have 
been had the exiled Prince of Wales been brought up 
as a Presbyterian. His father, James VII., died a few 
months before William III. passed away on March 7, 
1702. Louis XIV". acknowledged James, Prince of 
Wales, as James III. of England and Ireland and VIII. 
of Scotland; and Anne, the boy's aunt, ascended the 
throne. As a Stuart she was not unwelcome to the 
Jacobites, who hoped for various chances, as Anne was 
believed to be friendly to her nephew. 

In 1701 was passed an Act for preventing wrongous 
imprisonment and against undue delay in trials. But 
Nevile Payne continued to be untried and illegally im- 
prisoned. Offenders, generally, could " run their let- 
ters " and protest, if kept in durance untried for sixty 
days. 

The Revolution of 1688-1689, with William's very 
reluctant concessions, had placed Scotland in entirely 
new relations with England. Scotland could now no 
longer be " governed by the pen " from London ; Par- 
liament could no longer be bridled and led, at English 
will, by the Lords of the Articles. As the religious 
mainspring of Scottish political life, the domination 
of the preachers had been weakened by the new settle- 
ment of the Kirk; as the country was now set on 
commercial enterprises, which England everywhere 
thwarted, it was plain that the two kingdoms could not 



264 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

live together on the existing terms. Union there must 
be, or conquest, as under Cromwell; yet an English 
war of conquest was impossible, because it was impos- 
sible for Scotland to resist. Never would the country 
renew, as in the old days, the alliance of France, for 
a French alliance meant the acceptance by Scotland of 
a Catholic king. 

England, on her side, if Union came, was accepting 
a partner with very poor material resources. As re- 
gards agriculture, for example, vast regions were un- 
tilled, or tilled only in the straths and fertile spots 
by the hardy clansmen, who could not raise oats enough 
for their, own subsistence, and periodically endured 
famines. In " the ill years " of William, years of un- 
toward weather, distress had been extreme. In the 
fertile Lowlands that old grievance, insecurity of ten- 
ure, and the raising of rents in proportion to improve- 
ments made by the tenants, had baffled agriculture. En- 
closures were necessary for the protection of the crops, 
but even if tenants or landlords had the energy or 
capital to make enclosures, the neighbours destroyed 
them under cloud of night. The old labour-services 
were still extorted; the tenant's time and strength were 
not his own. Land was exhausted by absence of fal- 
lows and lack of manure. The country was undrained, 
lochs and morasses covered what is now fertile land, 
and hillsides now in pasture were under the plough. 
The once prosperous linen trade had suffered from the 
war of tariffs. 

The life of the burghs, political and municipal and 
trading, was little advanced on the mediaeval model. 



CONDITIONS OF INEQUALITY 265 

The independent Scot steadily resisted instruction from 
foreign and English craftsmen in most of the mechan- 
ical arts. Laws for the encouragement of trades were 
passed and bore little fruit. Companies were founded 
and were ruined by English tariffs and English com- 
petition. The most energetic of the population went 
abroad, here they prospered in commerce and in mili- 
tary service, while an enormous class of beggars lived 
on the hospitality of their neighbours at home. In 
such conditions of inequality it was plain that, if there 
was to be a Union, the adjustment of proportions of 
taxation and of representation in Parliament would 
require very delicate handling, while the differences of 
Church Government were certain to cause jealousies 
and opposition. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

PRELIMINARIES TO THE UNION 

The Scottish Parliament was not dissolved at William's 
death, nor did it meet at the time when, legally, it 
ought to have met. Anne, in a message, expressed 
hopes that it would assent to Union, and promised to 
concur in any reasonable scheme for compensating the 
losers by the Darien scheme. When Parliament met, 
Queensberry, being Commissioner, soon found it neces- 
sary (June 30, 1702) to adjourn. New officers of 
State were then appointed, and there was a futile meet- 
ing between English and Scottish Commissioners chosen 
by the Queen to consider the Union. 

Then came a General Election (1703), which gave 
birth to the last Scottish Parliament. The Commis- 
sioner, Queensberry, and the other officers of State, 
" the Court party," were of course for Union ; among 
them was prominent that wavering Earl of Mar who 
was so active in promoting the Union, and later pre- 
cipitated the Jacobite rising of 1715. There were in 
Parliament the party of Courtiers, friends of England 
and Union; the party of Cavaliers, that is Jacobites; 
and the Country party, led by the Duke of Hamilton, 
who was in touch with the Jacobites, but was quite 
untrustworthy, and much suspected of desiring the 
Crown of Scotland for himself. 

266 



UNION AND INTRIGUES 267 

Queensberry cozened the Cavaliers — by promises of 
tolerating their Episcopalian religion — into voting a 
Bill recognising Anne, and then broke his promise. The 
Bill for tolerating worship as practised by the Episco- 
palians was dropped; for the Commissioner of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Kirk declared that such toleration 
was " the establishment of iniquity by law." 

Queensberry's one aim was to get Supply voted, for 
war with France had begun. But the Country and the 
Cavalier parties refused Supply till an Act of Security 
for religion, liberty, law, and trade should be passed. 
The majority decided that, on the death of Anne, the 
Estates should name as king of Scotland a Protestant 
representative of the House of Stewart, who should 
not be the successor to the English crown, save under 
conditions guaranteeing Scotland as a sovereign state, 
with frequent Parliaments, and security for Scottish 
navigation, colonies, trade, and religion (the Act of 
Security). 

It was also decided that landholders and the burghs 
should drill and arm their tenants and dependents — if 
Protestant. Queensberry refused to pass this Act of 
Security; Supply, on the other side, was denied, and 
after a stormy scene Queensberry prorogued Parlia- 
ment (September 16, 1703). 

In the excitement Atholl had deserted the Court 
party and voted with the majority. He had a great 
Highland following, he might throw it on the Jacobite 
side, and the infamous intriguer, Simon Frazer (the 
Lord Lovat of 1745), came over from France and be- 
trayed to Queensberry a real or a feigned intrigue of 



268 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Atholl with France and with the Ministers of James 
VIII., called " The Pretender." 

Atholl was the enemy of Frazer, a canting, astute, 
and unscrupulous ruffian. Queensberry conceived that 
in a letter given to him by Lovat he had irrefutable 
evidence against Atholl as a conspirator, and he al- 
lowed Lovat to return to France, where he was 
promptly imprisoned as a traitor. Atholl convinced 
Anne of his own innocence, and Queensberry fell under 
ridicule and suspicion, lost his office of Commissioner, 
and was superseded by Tweeddale. In England the 
whole complex affair of Lovat's revelations was known 
as " The Scottish Plot " ; Hamilton was involved, or 
feared he might be involved, and therefore favoured 
the new proposals of the Courtiers and English party 
for placing limits on the prerogative of Anne's suc- 
cessor, whoever he might be. 

In the Estates (July 1704), after months passed in 
constitutional chicanery, the last year's Act of Se- 
curity was passed and touched with the sceptre; and 
the House voted Supply for six months. But owing 
to a fierce dispute on private business — namely, the 
raising of the question, " Who were the persons accused 
in England of being engaged in the * Scottish plot '? " 
— no hint of listening to proposals for Union was ut- 
tered. Who could propose, as Commissioners to ar- 
range Union, men who were involved — or in England 
had been accused of being involved — in the plot? Scot- 
land had not yet consented that whoever succeeded 
Anne in England should also succeed in Scotland. They 
retained a means of putting pressure on England, the 



RESTRICTIONS ON SCOTTISH TRADE 269 

threat of having a separate king; they had made and 
were making military preparations (drill once a-month !), 
and England took up the gauntlet. The menacing at- 
titude of Scotland was debated on with much heat in 
the English Upper House (November 29), and a Bill 
passed by the Commons declared the retaliatory meas- 
ures which England was ready to adopt. 

It was at once proved that England could put a much 
harder pinch on Scotland than Scotland could inflict on 
England. Scottish drovers were no longer to sell cattle 
south of the Border, Scottish ships trading with France 
were to be seized, Scottish coals and linen were to be 
excluded, and regiments of regular troops were to be 
sent to the Border if Scotland did not accept the Hano- 
verian succession before Christmas 1705. If it came 
to war, Scotland could expect no help from her ancient 
ally, France, unless she raised the standard of King 
James. As he was a Catholic, the Kirk would prohibit 
this measure, so it was perfectly clear to every plain 
man that Scotland must accept the Union and make 
the best bargain she could. 

In spring 1705 the new Duke of Argyll, " Red John 
of the Battles," a man of the sword and an accom- 
plished orator, was made Commissioner, and, of course, 
favoured the Union, as did Queensberry and the other 
officers of State. Friction between the two countries 
arose in spring, when an Edinburgh jury convicted, 
and the mob insisted on the execution of, an English 
Captain Green, whose ship, the Worcester, had been 
seized in the Forth by Roderick Mackenzie, Secretary 
of the Scottish East India Company. Green was sup- 



270 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

posed to have captured and destroyed a ship of the 
Company's, the Speedy Return, which never did return. 
It was not proved that this ship had been Green's 
victim, but that he had committed acts of piracy is 
certain. The hanging of Green increased the animosity 
of the sister kingdoms. 

When Parliament met, June 28, 1705, it was a par- 
liament of groups. Tweeddale and others, turned out 
of office in favour of Argyll's Government, formed the 
Flying Squadron (Squadrone volant e), voting in what- 
ever way would most annoy the Government. Argyll 
opened by proposing, as did the Queen's Message, the 
instant discussion of the Union (July 3). The House 
preferred to deliberate on anything else, and the leader 
of the Jacobites or Cavaliers, Lockhart of Carnwath, 
a very able sardonic man, saw that this was, for 
Jacobite ends, a tactical error. The more time was 
expended the more chance had Queensberry to win votes 
for the Union. Fletcher of Saltoun, an independent 
and eloquent patriot and republican, wasted time by 
impossible proposals. Hamilton brought forward, and 
by only two votes lost, a proposal which England would 
never have dreamed of accepting. Canny Jacobites, 
however, abstained from voting, and thence Lockhart 
dates the ruin of his country. Supply, at all events, 
was granted, and on that Argyll adjourned. The 
queen was to select Commissioners of both countries to 
negotiate the Treaty of Union ; among the Commission- 
ers, Lockhart was the only Cavalier, and he was merely 
to watch the case in the Jacobite interest. 

The meetings of the two sets of Commissioners be- 



TAXATION 271 

gan at Whitehall on April 16. It was arranged that 
all proposals, modifications, and results should pass 
in writing, and secrecy was to be complete. 

The Scots desired Union with Home Rule, with a 
separate Parliament. The English would negotiate 
only on the lines that the Union was to be complete, 
" incorporating," with one Parliament for both peo- 
ples. By April 25, 1706, the Scots Commissioners saw 
that on this point they must acquiesce; the defeat of 
the French at Ramillies (May 23) proved that, even 
if they could have leaned on the French, France was 
a broken reed. International reciprocity in trade, com- 
plete freedom of trade at home and abroad, they did 
obtain. 

As England, thanks to William III. with his inces- 
sant Continental wars, had already a great National 
debt, of which Scotland owed nothing, and as taxation 
in England was high, while Scottish taxes under the 
Union would rise to the same level, and to compensate 
for the Darien losses, the English granted a pecuniary 
"Equivalent" (May 10). They also did not raise 
the Scottish taxes on windows, lights, coal, malt, and 
salt to the English level, that of war-taxation. The 
Equivalent was to purchase the Scottish shares in the 
East India Company, with interest at five per cent up 
to May 1, 1707. That grievance of the shareholders 
was thus healed, what public debt Scotland owed was 
to be paid (the Equivalent was about £400,000), and 
any part of the money unspent was to be given to im- 
prove fisheries and manufactures. 

The number of Scottish members of the British Par- 



272 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

liament was fixed at forty-five. On this point the Scots 
felt that they were hardly used; the number of their 
elected representatives of peers in the Lords was six- 
teen. Scotland retained her courts of law; the feudal 
jurisdictions which gave to Argyll and others almost 
princely powers were retained, and Scottish procedure 
in trials continued to vary much from the English 
model. Appeals from the Court of Session had previ- 
ously been brought before the Parliament of Scotland; 
henceforth they were to be heard by the Judges, Scots 
and English, in the British House of Lords. On July 
23, 1706, the treaty was completed; on October 3 the 
Scottish Parliament met to debate on it, with Queens- 
berry as Commissioner. Harley, the English Minister, 
sent down the author of ' Robinson Crusoe ' to watch, 
spy, argue, persuade, and secretly report; and De- 
foe's letters contain the history of the session. 

The parties in Parliament were thus variously dis- 
posed: the Cavaliers, including Hamilton, had been 
approached by Louis XIV. and King James (the Pre- 
tender), but had not committed themselves. Queens- 
berry always knew every risky step taken by Hamilton, 
who began to take several, but in each case received a 
friendly warning which he dared not disregard. At 
the opposite pole, the Cameronians and other extreme 
Presbyterians loathed the Union, and at last (No- 
vember-December) a scheme for the Cameronians and 
the clans of Angus and Perthshire to meet in arms in 
Edinburgh and clear out the Parliament caused much 
alarm. But Hamilton, before the arrangement came 
to a head, was terrorised, and the intentions of the 



TROUBLES AFTER UNION 273 

Cameronians, as far as their records prove, had never 
been officially ratified by their leaders. 1 There was 
plenty of popular rioting during the session, but 
Argyll rode into Edinburgh at the head of the Horse 
Guards, and Leven held all the gates with drafts from 
the garrison of the castle. The Commissioners of the 
General Assembly made protests on various points, 
but were pacified after the security of the Kirk had 
been guaranteed. Finally, Hamilton prepared a par- 
liamentary mine, which would have blown the Treaty 
of Union sky-high, but on the night when he should 
have appeared in the House and set the match to his 
petard — he had toothache! This was the third occa- 
sion on which he had deserted the Cavaliers; the Op- 
position fell to pieces. The Squadrone volant e and the 
majority of the peers supported the Bill, which was 
passed. On January 16, 1707, the Treaty of Union 
was touched with the sceptre, " and there is the end 
of an auld sang," said Seafield. In May 1707 a sol- 
emn service was held at St. Paul's to commemorate the 
Union. 

There was much friction in the first year of the 
Union over excisemen and tax-collectors: smuggling 
began to be a recognised profession. Meanwhile, since 
1707, a Colonel Hooke had been acting in Scotland, 
nominally in Jacobite, really rather in French interests. 
Hooke's intrigues were in part betrayed by Defoe's 
agent, Ker of Kersland, an amusingly impudent knave, 
and were thwarted by jealousies of Argyll and Hamil- 

1 Dr. Hay Fleming finds no mention of this affair in the Minutes 
of the Societies. 



274 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ton. By deceptive promises (for he was himself de- 
ceived into expecting the aid of the Ulster Protestants ) 
Hooke induced Louis XIV. to send five men-of-war, 
twenty-one frigates, and only two transports, to land 
James in Scotland (March 1708). The equinoctial 
gales and the severe illness of James, who insisted on 
sailing, delayed the start; the men on the outlook for 
the fleet were intoxicated, and Forbin, the French com- 
mander, observing English ships of war coming to- 
wards the Firth of Forth, fled, refusing James's urgent 
entreaties to be landed anywhere on the coast 
(March 24). It was believed that had he landed only 
with a valet the discontented country would have risen 
for their native king. 

In Parliament (1710-1711) the Cavalier Scottish 
members, by Tory support, secured the release from 
prison of a Rev. Mr. Greenshields, an Episcopalian, who 
prayed for Queen Anne, indeed, but had used the Lit- 
urgy. The preachers were also galled by the imposition 
on them of an abjuration oath, compelling them to pray 
for prelatical Queen Anne. Lay patronage of livings 
was also restored (1712) after many vicissitudes, and 
this thorn rankled in the Kirk, causing ever-widening 
strife for more than a century. 

The imposition of a malt tax produced so much dis- 
content that even Argyll, with all the Scottish members 
of Parliament, was eager for the repeal of the Act of 
Union, and proposed it in the House of Peers, when it 
was defeated by a small majority. In 1712, when 
about to start on a mission to France, Hamilton was 
slain in a duel by Lord Mohun. According to a state- 



GEORGE I. ACCEPTS THE THRONE 275 

ment of Lockhart's, " Cavaliers were to look for the 
best " from Hamilton's mission : it is fairly clear that 
he was to bring over James in disguise to England, 
as in Thackeray's novel, ' Esmond.' But the sword 
of Mohun broke the Jacobite plans. Other hopes ex- 
pired when Bolingbroke and Harley quarrelled, and 
Queen Anne died (August 1, 1714). "The best cause 
in Europe was lost," cried Bishop Atterbury, " for 
want of spirit." He would have proclaimed James as 
king, but no man supported him, and the Elector of 
Hanover, George I., peacefully accepted the throne. 



CHAPTER XXX 

GEORGE I 

For a year the Scottish Jacobites, and Bolingbroke, 
who fled to France and became James's Minister, mis- 
managed the affairs of that most unfortunate of 
princes. By February 1715 the Earl of Mar, who 
had been distrusted and disgraced by George I., was 
arranging with the clans for a rising, while aid from 
Charles XII. of Sweden was expected from March to 
August 1715. It is notable that Charles had invited 
Dean Swift to visit his Court, when Swift was allied 
with Bolingbroke and Oxford. From the author of 
' Gulliver ' Charles no doubt hoped to get a trustworthy 
account of their policy. The fated rising of 1715 was 
occasioned by the Duke of Berwick's advice to James 
that he must set forth to Scotland or lose his honour. 
The prince therefore, acting hastily on news which, 
two or three days later, proved to be false, in a letter 
to Mar fixed August 10 for a rising. The orders were 
at once countermanded, when news proving their fu- 
tility was received, but James's messenger, Allan Cam- 
eron, was detained on the road, and Mar, not waiting 
for James's answer to his own last despatch advising 
delay, left London for Scotland without a commission ; 
on August 27 held an Assembly of the chiefs, and, still 

276 



JAMES FLEES 277 

without a commission from James, raised the standard 
of the king on September 6. 1 

The folly of Mar was consummate. He knew that 
Ormonde, the hope of the English Jacobites, had de- 
serted his post and had fled to France. 

Meanwhile Louis XIV. was dying; he died on Au- 
gust 30, and the Regent d'Orleans, at the utmost, would 
only connive at, not assist, James's enterprise. 

Everything was contrary, everywhere were igno- 
rance and confusion. Lord John Drummond's hopeful 
scheme for seizing Edinburgh Castle (September 8) was 
quieted pulveris exigui jactu, " the gentlemen were pow- 
dering their hair " — drinking at a tavern — and bungled 
the business. The folly of Government offered a chance : 
in Scotland they had but 2000 regulars at Stirling, 
where " Forth bridles the wild Highlandman." Mar, 
who promptly occupied Perth, though he had some 
12,000 broadswords, continued till the end to make 
Perth his headquarters. A Montrose, a Dundee, even 
a Prince Charles, would have " masked " Argyll at 
Stirling and seized Edinburgh. In October 21-No- 
vember S, Berwick, while urging James to sail, 
absolutely refused to accompany him. The plans of 
Ormonde for a descent on England were betrayed by 
Colonel Maclean, in French service (November 4). In 
disguise and narrowly escaping from murderous 
agents of Stair (British ambassador to France) on 

1 All this is made clear from the letters of the date in the 
Stuart Papers (Historical Manuscript Commission). 



278 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

his road, 1 James journeyed to St. Malo (Novem- 
ber 8). 

In Scotland the Macgregors made a futile attempt 
on Dumbarton Castle, while Glengarry and the Mac- 
leans advanced on Inverary Castle, negotiated with 
Argyll's brother, the Earl of Islay, and marched back 
to Strathfillan. In Northumberland, Forster and Der- 
wentwater, with some Catholic fox-hunters, in Gallo- 
way the pacific Viscount Kenmure, cruised vaguely 
about and joined forces. Mackintosh of Borlum, by 
a well-concealed movement, carried a Highland detach- 
ment of 1600 men across the Firth of Forth by boats 
(October 12-13), with orders to join Forster and Ken- 
mure and arouse the Border. But on approaching 
Edinburgh, Mackintosh found Argyll with 500 dra- 
goons ready to welcome him; Mar took no advantage 
of Argyll's absence from Stirling, and Mackintosh, 
when Argyll returned thither, joined Kenmure and 
Forster, occupied Kelso, and marched into Lancashire. 
The Jacobite forces were pitifully ill-supplied, they 
had very little ammunition (the great charge against 
Bolingbroke was that he sent none from France), they 
seem to have had no idea that powder could be made 
by the art of man; they were torn by jealousies, 
and dispirited by their observation of Mar's incompe- 
tence. 

We cannot pursue in detail the story of the futile 
campaign. On November 12 the mixed Highland, Low- 
land, and English command found itself cooped up in 

i In addition to Saint Simon's narrative we have the documen- 
tary evidence taken in a French inquiry. 



MAR'S HOPELESS ENTERPRISE 279 

Preston, and after a very gallant defence of the town 
the English leaders surrendered to the king's mercy, 
after arranging an armistice which made it impossible 
for Mackintosh to cut his way through the English 
ranks and retreat to the north. About 1600 prisoners 
were taken. Derwentwater and Kenmure were later 
executed. Forster and Nithsdale made escapes; 
Charles Wogan, a kinsman of the chivalrous Wogan 
of 1650, and Mackintosh, with six others, forced their 
way out of Newgate prison on the night before their 
trial. Wogan was to make himself heard of again. 
Mar had thrown away his Highlanders, with little am- 
munition and without orders, on a perfectly aimless 
and hopeless enterprise. 

Meanwhile he himself, at Perth, had been doing noth- 
ing, while in the north, Simon Frazer (Lord Lovat) 
escaped from his French prison, raised his clan, and 
took the castle of Inverness for King George. He 
thus earned a pardon for his private and public crimes, 
and he lived to ruin the Jacobite cause and lose his 
own head in 1745-1746. 

While the north, Ross-shire and Inverness, were 
daunted and thwarted by the success of Lovat, Mar led 
his whole force from Perth to Dunblane, apparently in 
search of a ford over Forth. His Frazers and many 
of his Gordons deserted on November 11 ; on Novem- 
ber 12 Mar, at Ardoch (the site of an old Roman 
camp), learned that Argyll was marching through 
Dunblane to meet him. Next day Mar's force occu- 
pied the crest of rising ground on the wide swell of 
Sheriff muir: his left was all disorderly; horse mixed 



280 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

with foot; his right, with the fighting clans, was well 
ordered, but the nature of the ground hid the two 
wings of the army from each other. On the right the 
Macdonalds and Macleans saw Clanranald fall, and 
on Glengarry's cry, " Vengeance to-day ! " they charged 
with the claymore and swept away the regulars of 
Argyll as at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. But, as 
the clans pursued and slew, their officers whispered that 
their own centre and left were broken and flying. 
Argyll had driven them to Allan Water; his force, 
returning, came within close range of the victorious 
right of Mar. " Oh, for one hour of Dundee ! " cried 
Gordon of Glenbucket, but neither party advanced to 
the shock. Argyll retired safely to Dunblane, while 
Mar deserted his guns and powder-carts, and hurried to 
Perth. He had lost the gallant young Earl of Strath- 
more and the brave Clanranald; on Argyll's side his 
brother Islay was wounded, and the Earl of Forfar was 
slain. Though it was a drawn battle, it proved that 
Mar could not move: his forces began to scatter; 
Huntly was said to have behaved ill. It was known 
that Dutch auxiliaries were to reinforce Argyll, and 
men began to try to make terms of surrender. Huntly 
rode off to his own country, and on December 9,9, (old 
style) James landed at Peterhead. 

James had no lack of personal courage. He had 
charged again and again at Malplaquet with the House- 
hold cavalry of Louis XIV., and he had encountered 
great dangers of assassination on his way to St. Malo. 
But constant adversity had made him despondent and 
resigned, while he saw facts as they really were with 



ILLNESS AND FLIGHT OF JAMES 281 

a sad lucidity. When he arrived in his kingdom the 
Whig clans of the north had daunted Seaforth's Mac- 
kenzies, while in the south Argyll, with his Dutch and 
other fresh reinforcements, had driven Mar's men out 
of Fife. Writing to Bolingbroke, James described the 
situation. Mar, with scarcely any ammunition, was 
facing Argyll with 11,000 men; the north was held in 
force by the Whig clans, Mackays, Rosses, Munroes, 
and Frazers ; deep snow alone delayed the advance of 
Argyll, now stimulated by the hostile Cadogan, Marl- 
borough's favourite, and it was perfectly plain that all 
was lost. 

For the head of James £100,000 was offered by 
Hanoverian chivalry: he was suffering from fever and 
ague; the Spanish gold that had at last been sent to 
him was lost at sea off Dundee, and it is no wonder 
that James, never gay, presented to his troops a dis- 
consolate and discouraging aspect. 

On January 29 his army evacuated Perth; James 
wept at the order to burn the villages on Argyll's line 
of march, and made a futile effort to compensate the 
people injured. From Montrose (February 3-14) he 
wrote for aid to the French Regent, but next day, 
urged by Mar, and unknown to his army, he, with Mar, 
set sail for France. This evasion was doubtless caused 
by a circumstance unusual in warfare: there was a 
price of £100,000 on James's head, moreover his force 
had not one day's supply of powder. Marshal Keith 
(brother of the Earl Marischal who retreated to the 
Isles) says that perhaps one day's supply of powder 
might be found at Aberdeen. Nevertheless the fight- 



282 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

ing clans were eager to meet Argyll, and would have 
sold their lives at a high price. They scattered to their 
western fastnesses. 

The main political result, apart from executions and 
the passing of forfeited estates into the management of 
that noted economist, Sir Richard Steele, and other 
commissioners, was — the disgrace of Argyll. He, who 
with a petty force had saved Scotland, was represented 
by Cadogan and by his political enemies as dilatory 
and disaffected! The duke lost all his posts, and in 
1716 (when James had hopes from Sweden) Islay, 
Argyll's brother, was negotiating with Jacobite agents. 
James was creating him a peer of England ! 

In Scotland much indignation was aroused by the 
sending of Scottish prisoners of war out of the king- 
dom for trial — namely, to Carlisle — and by other se- 
verities. The Union had never been more unpopular: 
the country looked on itself as conquered, and had no 
means of resistance, for James, now residing at Avi- 
gnon, was a Catholic, and any insults and injuries from 
England were more tolerable than a restored nation- 
ality with a Catholic king. 

Into the Jacobite hopes and intrigues, the eternal 
web which from 1689 to 1763 was ever being woven 
and broken, it is impossible here to enter, though, in 
the now published Stuart Papers, the details are well 
known. James was driven from Avignon to Italy, to 
Spain, finally to live a pensioner at Rome. The luck- 
less attempt of the Earl Marischal, Keith, his brother, 
and Lord George Murray, brother of the Duke of 
Atholl, to invade Scotland on the west with a small 



BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES 283 

Spanish force, was crushed on June 10, 1719, in the 
pass of Glenshiel. 

Two or three months later, James, returning from 
Spain, married the fair and hapless Princess Clementina 
Sobieska, whom Charles Wogan, in an enterprise truly 
romantic, had rescued from prison at Innspruck and 
conveyed across the Alps. From this wedding, made 
wretched by the disappointment of the bride with her 
melancholy lord, — always busied with political secrets 
from which she was excluded, — was born, on December 
31, 1720, Charles Edward Stuart : from his infancy the 
hope of the Jacobite party ; from his cradle surrounded 
by the intrigues, the jealousies, the adulations of an 
exiled Court, and the quarrels of Protestants and 
Catholics, Irish, Scottish, and English. Thus, among 
changes of tutors and ministers, as the discovery or 
suspicion of treachery, the bigotry of Clementina, and 
the pressure of other necessities might permit, was that 
child reared whose name, at least, has received the 
crown of Scottish affection and innumerable tributes 
of Scottish song. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

THE ARGATHELIANS AND THE SQUADRONE 

Leaving the fortunes of the Jacobite party at their 
lowest ebb, and turning to the domestic politics of 
Scotland, after 1719, we find that if it be happiness 
to have no history, Scotland had much reason to be 
content. There was but a dull personal strife between 
the faction of Argyll and his brother Islay (called the 
" Argathelians," from the Latinised Argathelia, or 
Argyll), and the other faction known, since the Union, 
as the Squadrone volante, or Flying Squadron, who 
professed to be patriotically independent. As to Ar- 
gyll, he had done all that man might do for George I. 
But, as we saw, the reports of Cadogan and the jeal- 
ousy of George (who is said to have deemed Argyll 
too friendly with his detested heir) caused the disgrace 
of the duke in 1716, and the Squadrone held the spoils 
of office. But in February- April 1719 George reversed 
his policy, heaped Argyll with favours, made him, as 
Duke of Greenwich, a peer of England, and gave him 
the High Stewardship of the Household. 

At this time all the sixteen representative peers of 
Scotland favoured, for Various reasons of their own, a 
proposed Peerage Bill. The Prince of Wales might, 
when he came to the throne, swamp the Lords by large 
new creations in his own interest, and the Bill laid 
down that, henceforth, not more than six peers, ex- 

284 



ENCLOSURES AND RIOTS 285 

elusive of members of the royal family, should be 
created by any sovereign; while in place of sixteen 
representative Scotland should have twenty-five 'per- 
manent peers. From his new hatred of the Prince of 
Wales, Argyll favoured the Bill, as did the others of 
the sixteen of the moment, because they would be among 
the permanencies. The Scottish Jacobite peers (not 
representatives) and the Commons of both countries 
opposed the Bill. The election of a Scottish repre- 
sentative peer at this juncture led to negotiations be- 
tween Argyll and Lockhart as leader of the suffering 
Jacobites, but terms were not arrived at; the Govern- 
ment secured a large Whig majority in a general 
election (1722), and Walpole began his long tenure of 
office. 

ENCLOSURE RIOTS 

In 1724 there were some popular discontents. En- 
closures, as we saw, had scarcely been known in Scot- 
land; when they were made, men, women, and children 
took pleasure in destroying them under cloud of night. 
Enclosures might keep a man's cattle on his own 
ground, keep other men's off it, and secure for the 
farmer his own manure. That good Jacobite, Mackin- 
tosh of Borlum, who in 1715 led the Highlanders to 
Preston, in 1729 wrote a book recommending enclosures 
and plantations. But when (in 1724) the lairds of 
Galloway and Dumfriesshire anticipated and acted on 
his plan, which in this case involved evictions of very 
indolent and ruinous farmers, the tenants rose. Multi- 



286 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

tudes of " Levellers " destroyed the loose stone dykes 
and slaughtered cattle. They had already been pas- 
sive resisters of rent; the military were called in; 
women were in the forefront of the brawls, which were 
not quieted till the middle of 1725, when Lord Stair 
made an effort to introduce manufactures. 



MALT RIOTS 

Other disturbances began in a resolution of the 
House of Commons, at the end of 1724, not to impose 
a Malt Tax equal to that of England (this had been 
successfully resisted in 1713), but to levy an addi- 
tional sixpence on every barrel of ale, and to remove 
the bounties on exported grain. At the Union, Scot- 
land had, for the time, been exempted from the Malt 
Tax, specially devised to meet the expenses of the 
French war of that date. Now, in 1724-1725, Scot- 
land was up in arms to resist the attempt " to rob a 
poor man of his beer." But Walpole could put force 
on the Scottish Members of Parliament, — " a parcel 
of low people that could not subsist," says Lockhart, 
" without their board wages." Walpole threatened to 
withdraw the ten guineas hitherto paid weekly by Gov- 
ernment to those legislators. He offered to drop the 
sixpence on beer and put threepence on every bushel 
of malt, a half of the English tax. On June 23, 1725, 
the tax was to be exacted. The consequence was an 
attack on the military by the mob of Glasgow, who 
wrecked the house of their Member in Parliament, 



STATE OF THE HIGHLANDS 287 

Campbell of Shawfield. Some of the assailants were 
shot : General Wade and the Lord Advocate, Forbes of 
Culloden, marched a force on Glasgow, the magistrates 
of the town were imprisoned but released on bail, while 
in Edinburgh the master brewers, ordered by the Court 
of Session to raise the price of their ale, struck for a 
week; some were imprisoned, others were threatened 
or cajoled and deserted their Union. The one result 
was that the chief of the Squadrone, the Duke of 
Roxburgh, lost his Secretaryship for Scotland, and 
Argyll's brother, Islay, with the resolute Forbes of 
Culloden, became practically the governors of the coun- 
try. The Secretaryship, indeed, was for a time abol- 
ished, but Islay practically wielded the power that had 
so long been in the hands of the Secretary as agent of 
the Court. 

THE HIGHLANDS 

The clans had not been disarmed after 1715, more- 
over 6000 muskets had been brought in during the af- 
fair that ended at Glenshiel in 1719. General Wade 
was commissioned in 1724 to examine and report on 
the Highlands : Lovat had already sent in a report. He 
pointed out that Lowlanders paid blackmail for pro- 
tection to Highland raiders, and that independent 
companies of Highlanders, paid by Government, had 
been useful, but were broken up in 1717. What Lovat 
wanted was a company and pay for himself. Wade 
represented the force of the clans as about 22,000 clay- 
mores, half Whig (the extreme north and the Camp- 



288 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

bells), half Jacobite. The commandants of forts should 
have independent companies; cavalry should be quar- 
tered between Inverness and Perth, and Quarter Ses- 
sions should be held at Fort William and Ruthven in 
Badenoch. In 1725 Wade disarmed Seaforth's clan, 
the Mackenzies, easily, for Seaforth, then in exile, 
was on bad terms with James, and wished to come home 
with a pardon. Glengarry, Clanranald, Glencoe, Ap- 
pin, Lochiel, Clan Vourich, and the Gordons affected 
submission — but only handed over two thousand rusty 
weapons of every sort. Lovat did obtain an independ- 
ent company, later withdrawn — with results. The 
clans were by no means disarmed, but Wade did, from 
1725 to 1736, construct his famous military roads and 
bridges, interconnecting the forts. 

The death of George I. (June 11, 1727) induced 
James to hurry to Lorraine and communicate with 
Lockhart. But there was nothing to be done. Clemen- 
tina had discredited her husband, even in Scotland, 
much more in England, by her hysterical complaints, 
and her hatred of every man employed by James in- 
flamed the petty jealousies and feuds among the exiles 
of his Court. No man whom he could select would 
have been approved of by the party. 

To the bishops of the persecuted Episcopalian rem- 
nant, quarrelling over details of ritual called " the 
Usages," James vainly recommended " forbearance in 
love." Lockhart, disgusted with the clergy, and siding 
with Clementina against her husband, believed that 
some of the wrangling churchmen betrayed the chan- 
nel of his communications with his king (1727). Islay 



PRINCE CHARLES UNDER FIRE 289 

gave Lockhart a hint to disappear, and he sailed from 
Scotland for Holland on April 8, 1727. 

Since James dismissed Bolingbroke, every one of his 
Ministers was suspected, by one faction or another of 
the party, as a traitor. Atterbury denounced Mar, 
Lockhart denounced Hay (titular Earl of Inverness), 
Clementina told feminine tales for which even the angry 
Lockhart could find no evidence. James was the butt 
of e\ery slanderous tongue; but absolutely nothing 
against his moral character, or his efforts to do his 
best, or his tolerance and lack of suspiciousness, can 
be wrung from documents. 1 

By 1734 the elder of James's two sons, Prince 
Charles, was old enough to show courage and to thrust 
himself under fire in the siege of Gaeta, where his 
cousin, the Due de Liria, was besieging the Imperi- 
alists. He won golden opinions from the army, but 
was already too strong for his tutors — Murray and 
Sir Thomas Sheridan. He had both Protestant and 
Catholic governors; between them he learned to spell 
execrably in three languages, and sat loose to Catho- 
lic doctrines. In January 1735 died his mother, who 
had found refuge from her troubles in devotion. The 
grief of James and of the boys was acute. 

In 1736 Lovat was looking towards the rising sun 
of Prince Charles; was accused by a witness of en- 
abling John Roy Stewart, Jacobite and poet, to break 
prison at Inverness, and of sending by him a message 

1 See * The King over the Water,' by Alice Shield and A. Lang. 
Thackeray's King James, in * Esmond,' is very amusing but abso- 
lutely false to history. 



290 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

of devotion to James, from whom he expected a 
dukedom. Lovat therefore lost his sheriffship and his 
independent company, and tried to attach himself to 
Argyll, when the affair of the Porteous Riot caused 
a coldness between Argyll and the English Govern- 
ment (1736-1737). 



THE PORTEOUS RIOT 

The affair of Porteous is so admirably well described 
in ' The Heart of Midlothian,' and recent research * 
has thrown so little light on the mystery (if mystery 
there were), that a brief summary of the tale may 
suffice. 

In the spring of 1736 two noted smugglers, Wilson 
and Robertson, were condemned to death. They had, 
while in prison, managed to widen the space between 
the window-bars of their cell, and would have escaped ; 
but Wilson, a very stoutly built man, went first and 
stuck in the aperture, so that Robertson had no chance. 
The pair determined to attack their guards in church, 
where, as usual, they were to be paraded and preached 
at on the Sunday preceding their execution. Rob- 
ertson leaped up and fled, with the full sym- 
pathy of a large and interested congregation, while 
Wilson grasped a guard with each hand and a third 
with his teeth. Thus Robertson got clean away — to 
Holland, it was said, — while Wilson was to be hanged 

1 « The Porteous Trial/ by Mr. Roughead, W.S. 



THE PORTEOUS RIOT 291 

on April 14. The acting lieutenant of the Town Guard 
— an unpopular body, mainly Highlanders — was John 
Porteous, famous as a golfer, but, by the account of 
his enemies, notorious as a brutal and callous ruffian. 
The crowd in the Grassmarket was great, but there was 
no attempt at a rescue. The mob, however, threw large 
stones at the Guard, who fired, killing or wounding, 
as usual, harmless spectators. The case for Porteous, 
as reported in ' The State Trials,' was that the attack 
was dangerous; that the plan was to cut down and 
resuscitate Wilson; that Porteous did not order, but 
tried to prevent, the firing; and that neither at first 
nor in a later skirmish at the West Bow did he fire 
himself. There was much " cross swearing " at the 
trial of Porteous (July 20) ; the jury found him guilty, 
and he was sentenced to be hanged on September 8. A 
petition from him to Queen Caroline (George II. was 
abroad) drew attention to palpable discrepancies in 
the hostile evidence. Both parties in Parliament backed 
his application, and on August 28 a delay of justice 
for six weeks was granted. 

Indignation was intense. An intended attack on 
the Tolbooth, where Porteous lay, had been matter of 
rumour three days earlier: the prisoner should have 
been placed in the Castle. At 10 p.m. on the night 
of September 7 the magistrates heard that boys were 
beating a drum, and ordered the Town Guard under 
arms ; but the mob, who had already secured the 
town's gates, disarmed the veterans. Mr. Lindsay, 
lately Provost, escaped by the Potter Row gate (near 
the old fatal Kirk-o'-Pield), and warned General 



292 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Moyle in the Castle. But Moyle could not introduce 
soldiers without a warrant. Before a warrant could 
arrive the mob had burned down the door of the Tol- 
booth, captured Porteous — who was hiding up the 
chimney, — carried him to the Grassmarket, and hanged 
him to a dyer's pole. The only apparent sign that 
persons of rank above that of the mob were concerned, 
was the leaving of a guinea in a shop whence they took 
the necessary rope. The magistrates had been guilty 
of gross negligence. The mob was merely a resolute 
mob ; but Islay, in London, suspected that the political 
foes of the Government were engaged, or that the 
Cameronians, who had been renewing the Covenants, 
were concerned. 

Islay hurried to Edinburgh, where no evidence could 
be extracted. " The High Flyers of our Scottish 
Church," he wrote, " have made this infamous murder 
a point of conscience. . . . All the lower rank of the 
people who have distinguished themselves by the pre- 
tensions of superior sanctity speak of this murder as 
the hand of God doing justice." They went by the 
precedent of the murder of Archbishop Sharp, it ap- 
pears. In the Lords (February 1737) a Bill was 
passed for disabling the Provost — one Wilson — for 
public employment, destroying the Town Charter, abol- 
ishing the Town Guard, and throwing down the gate 
of the Nether Bow. Argyll opposed the Bill; in the 
Commons all Scottish members were against it; Wal- 
pole gave way. Wilson was dismissed, and a fine of 
£2000 was levied and presented to the widow of Por- 
teous. An Act commanding preachers to read monthly 



DISLIKE OF WALPOLE'S GOVERNMENT 293 

for a year, in church, a proclamation bidding their 
hearers aid the cause of justice against the murderers, 
was an insult to the Kirk, from an Assembly contain- 
ing bishops. It is said that at least half of the min- 
isters disobeyed with impunity. It was impossible, of 
course, to evict half of the preachers in the country. 

Argyll now went into opposition against Walpole, 
and, at least, listened to Keith — later the great Field- 
Marshal of Frederick the Great, and brother of the 
exiled Earl Marischal. 

In 1737 the Jacobites began to stir again: a com- 
mittee of five Chiefs and Lords was formed to manage 
their affairs. John Murray of Broughton went to 
Rome, and lost his heart to Prince Charles — now a 
tall handsome lad of seventeen, with large brown eyes, 
and, when he pleased, a very attractive manner. To 
Murray, more than to any other man, was due the 
Rising of 1745. 

Meanwhile, in secular affairs, Scotland showed noth- 
ing more remarkable than the increasing dislike, 
strenthened by Argyll, of Walpole's Government. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE FIRST SECESSION 

For long we have heard little of the Kirk, which be- 
tween 1720 and 1740 passed through a cycle of internal 
storms. She had been little vexed, either during her 
years of triumph or defeat, by heresy or schism. But 
now the doctrines of Antoinette Bourignon, a French 
lady mystic, reached Scotland, and won the sympathies 
of some students of divinity — including the Rev. John 
Simson, of an old clerical family which had been no- 
torious since the Reformation for the turbulence of its 
members. In 1714, and again in 1717, Mr. Simson was 
acquitted by the Assembly on the charges of being a 
Jesuit, a Socinian, and an Arminian, but was warned 
against " a tendency to attribute too much to natural 
reason." In 1726-1729 he was accused of minimising 
the doctrines of the creed of St. Athanasius, and tend- 
ing to the Arian heresy, — " lately raked out of hell," 
said the Kirk-session of Portmoak (1725), addressing 
the sympathetic Presbytery of Kirkcaldy. At the As- 
sembly of 1726 that Presbytery, with others, assailed 
Mr. Simson, who was in bad health, and " could talk 
of nothing but the Council of Nice." A committee, 
including Mar's brother, Lord Grange (who took such 
strong measures with his wife, Lady Grange, forcibly 
translating her to the isle of St. Kilda), inquired into 

294 



SECESSION IN THE KIRK 295 

the views of Mr. Simson's own Presbytery — that of 
Glasgow. This Presbytery cross-examined Mr. Sim- 
son's pupils, and Mr. Simson observed that the pro- 
ceedings were " an unfruitful work of darkness." 
Moreover, Mr. Simson was of the party of the 
Squadrone, while his assailants were Argathelians. A 
large majority of the Assembly gave the verdict that 
Mr. Simson was a heretic. Finally, though in 17&8 
his answers to questions would have satisfied good St. 
Athanasius, Mr. Simson found himself in the ideal po- 
sition of being released from his academic duties but 
confirmed in his salary. The lenient good-nature of 
this decision, with some other grievances, set fire to a 

mine which blew the Kirk in twain, 
i 

The Presbytery of Auchterarder had set up a kind 
of " standard " of their own — " The Auchterarder 
Creed " — which included this formula: "It is not sound 
or orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order 
to our coming to Christ, and instating us in Covenant 
with God." The General Assembly condemned this 
part of the Creed of Auchterarder. The Rev. Mr. 
Hog, looking for weapons in defence of Auchterarder, 
republished part of a forgotten book of 1646, 6 The 
Marrow of Modern Divinity.' The work appears to 
have been written by a speculative hairdresser, an In- 
dependent. A copy of the Marrow was found by the 
famous Mr. Boston of Ettrick in the cottage of a 
parishioner. From the Marrow he sucked much ad- 
vantage: its doctrines were grateful to the sympa- 
thisers with Auchterarder, and the republication of the 
book rent the Kirk. 



296 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

In 1720 a Committee of the General Assembly con- 
demned a set of propositions in the Marrow as tending 
to Antinomianism (the doctrine that the saints cannot 
sin, professed by Trusty Tompkins in ' Woodstock '). 
But — as in the case of the five condemned proposi- 
tions of Jansenius — the Auchterarder party denied 
that the heresies could be found in the Marrow. 

It was the old quarrel between Faith and Works. 
The clerical petitioners in favour of the Marrow were 
rebuked by the Assembly (May 21, 1722); they pro- 
tested: against a merely human majority in the Assem- 
bly they appealed to " The Word of God," to which 
the majority also appealed; and there was a period 
of passion, but schism had not yet arrived. 

The five or six friends of the Marrow really disliked 
moral preaching, as opposed to weekly discourses on 
the legal technicalities of justification, sanctification, 
and adoption. They were also opposed to the working 
of the Act which, in 1712, restored lay patronage. If 
the Assembly enforced the law of the land in this mat- 
ter (and it did), the Assembly sinned against the divine 
right of congregations to elect their own preachers. 
Men of this way of thinking were led by the Rev. Mr. 
Ebenezer Erskine, a poet who, in 1714, addressed an 
Ode to George I. He therein denounced " subverting 
patronage " and 

"the woful dubious Abjuration 
Which gave the clergy ground for speculation." 

But a Jacobite song struck the same note — 



EXCOMMUNICATION OF SECEDERS 297 

"Let not the Abjuration 
Impose upon the nation!" 

and George was deaf to the muse of Mr. Erskine. 

In 1732-1733, Mr. Erskine, in sermons concerning 
patronage, offended the Assembly; would not apolo- 
gise, appeared (to a lay reader) to claim direct in- 
spiration, and with three other brethren constituted 
himself and them into a Presbytery. Among their 
causes of separation (or rather of deciding that the 
Kirk had separated from them) was the salary of 
Emeritus Professor Simson. The new Presbytery de- 
clared that the Covenants were still and were eternally 
binding on Scotland ; in fact, these preachers were 
" platonically " for going back to the old ecclesiastical 
claims, with the old war of Church and State. They 
naturally denounced the Act of 1736, which abolished 
the burning of witches. After a period of long-suffer- 
ing patience and conciliatory efforts, in 1740 the As- 
sembly deposed the Seceders. 

In 1747 a party among the Seceders excommunicated 
Mr. Erskine and his brother ; one of those who handed 
Mr. Erskine over to Satan (if the old formula were 
retained) was his son-in-law. 

The feuds of Burghers and Antiburghers (persons 
who were ready to take or refused to take the Burgess 
oath), New Lights and Old Lights, lasted very long 
and had evil consequences. As the populace love the 
headiest doctrines, they preferred preachers in pro- 
portion as they leaned towards the Marrow, while lay 



298 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

patrons preferred candidates of the opposite views. 
The Assembly must either keep the law and back the 
patrons, or break the law and cease to be a State 
Church. The corruption of patronage was often no- 
torious on one side; on the other the desirability of 
burning witches and the belief in the eternity of the 
Covenants were articles of faith ; and such articles were 
not to the taste of the " Moderates," educated clergy- 
men of the new school. Thus arose the war of " High 
Flyers " and " Moderates " within the Kirk, — a war 
conducing to the great Disruption of 1843, in which 
gallant little Auchterarder was again in the foremost 
line. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE LAST JACOBITE RISING 



While the Kirk was vainly striving to assuage the 
tempers of Mr. Erskine and his friends, the Jacobites 
were preparing to fish in troubled waters. In 1739 
Walpole was forced to declare war against Spain, and 
Walpole had previously sounded James as to his own 
chances of being trusted by that exiled prince. James 
thought that Walpole was merely angling for informa- 
tion. Meanwhile Jacobite affairs were managed by two 
rivals, Macgregor (calling himself Drummond) of Bal- 
haldy and Murray of Broughton. The sanguine 
Balhaldy induced France to suppose that the Jacobites 
in England and Scotland were much more united, pow- 
erful, and ready for action than they really were, when 
Argyll left office in 1742, while Walpole fell from power, 
Carteret and the Duke of Newcastle succeeding. In 
1743 Murray found that France, though now at war 
with England over the Spanish Succession, was hold- 
ing aloof from the Jacobite cause, though plied with 
flourishing and fabulous reports from Balhaldy and 
the Jacobite Lord Sempill. But, in December 1743, 
on the strength of alleged Jacobite energy in England, 
Balhaldy obtained leave from France to visit Rome and 
bring Prince Charles. The Prince had kept himself 
in training for war and was eager. Taking leave of 
his father for the last time, Charles drove out of Rome 

299 



300 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

on January 9, 1744; evaded, in disguise, every trap 
that was set for him, and landed at Antibes, reaching 
Paris on February 10. Louis did not receive him 
openly, if he received him at all; the Prince lurked 
at Gravelines in disguise, with the Earl Marischal, 
while winds and waves half ruined, and the approach 
of a British fleet drove into port, a French fleet of 
invasion under Roqueville (March 6, 7, 1744). 

The Prince wrote to Sempill that he was ready and 
willing to sail for Scotland in an open boat. In July 
1744 he told Murray that he would come next summer 
" if he had no other companion than his valet." He 
nearly kept his word; nor did Murray resolutely op- 
pose his will. At the end of May 1745 Murray's serv- 
ant brought a letter from the Prince ; " fall back, fall 
edge," he would land in the Highlands in July. Lochiel 
regretted the decision, but said that, as a man of hon- 
our, he would join his Prince if he arrived. 

On July 2 the Prince left Nantes in the Dutillet 
(usually styled La Doutelle). He brought some money 
(he had pawned the Sobieski rubies), some arms, Tulli- 
bardine, his Governor Sheridan, Parson Kelly, the titu- 
lar Duke of Atholl, Sir John Macdonald, a banker, 
Sullivan, and one Buchanan — the Seven Men of 
Moidart. 

On July 20 his consort, The Elizabeth, fought The 

Lion (Captain Brett) off the Lizard; both antagonists 

On July %% 

were crippled. Charles passed the night 

FF August 2 F S 

on the little isle of Eriskay; appealed vainly to Mac- 

leod and Macdonald of Sleat; was urged, at Kinloch- 



THE PRINCE RAISES THE STANDARD 301 

moidart, by the Macdonalds, to return to France, but 

swept them off their feet by his resolution; and with 

Lochiel and the Macdonalds raised the standard at the 

19 
head of Glenfinnan on August 

The English Government had already offered £30,000 
for the Prince's head. The clans had nothing to gain; 
they held that they had honour to preserve; they re- 
membered Montrose; they put it to the touch, and 
followed Prince Charlie. 

The strength of the Prince's force was, first, the 
Macdonalds. On August 16 Keppoch had cut off two 
companies of the Royal Scots near Loch Lochy. But 
the chief of Glengarry was old and wavering; young 
Glengarry, captured on his way from France, could 
not be with his clan ; his young brother iEneas led till 
his accidental death after the battle of Falkirk. 

Of the Camerons it is enough to say that their leader 
was the gentle Lochiel, and that they were worthy of 
their chief. The Macphersons came in rather late, un- 
der Cluny. The Frazers were held back by the crafty 
Lovat, whose double-dealing, with the abstention of 
Macleod (who was sworn to the cause) and of Mac- 
donald of Sleat, ruined the enterprise. Clan Chat- 
tan was headed by the beautiful Lady Mackintosh, 
whose husband adhered to King George. Of the dis- 
possessed Macleans, some 250 were gathered (under 
Maclean of Drimnin), and of that resolute band some 
fifty survived Culloden. These western clans (includ- 
ing 220 Stewarts of Appin under Ardshiel) were the 
steel point of Charles's weapon; to them should be 



302 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

added the Macgregors under James Mor, son of Rob 
Roy, a shifty character but a hero in fight. 

To resist these clans, the earliest to join, Sir John 
Cope, commanding in Scotland, had about an equal 
force of all arms, say £500 to 3000 men, scattered in 
all quarters, and with very few field-pieces. Tweed- 
dale, holding the revived office of Secretary for Scot- 
land, was on the worst terms, as leader of the Squad- 
rone, with his Argathelian rival, Islay, now (through 
the recent death of his brother, Red Ian of the Battles) 
Duke of Argyll. Scottish Whigs were not encouraged 
to arm. 

? The Prince marched south, while Cope, who had 
concentrated at Stirling, marched north to intercept 
him. At Dalnacardoch he learned that Charles was 
advancing to meet him in Cor ryar rick Pass (here came 
in Ardshiel, Glencoe, and a Glengarry reinforcement). 
At Dalwhinnie, Cope found that the clans held the 
pass, which is very defensible. He dared not face them, 
and moved by Ruthven in Badenoch to Inverness, where 
he vainly expected to be met by the great Whig clans 
of the north. 

Joined now by Cluny, Charles moved on that old base 
of Montrose, the Castle of Blair of Atholl, where the 
exiled duke (commonly called Marquis of Tullibardine) 
was received with enthusiasm. In the mid-region be- 
tween Highland and Lowland, the ladies, Lady Lude 
and the rest, simply forced their sons, brothers, and 
lovers into arms. While Charles danced and made 
friends, and tasted his first pine-apple at Blair, James 
Mor took the fort of Inversnaid. At Perth ( September 



THE PRINCE APPROACHES EDINBURGH 303 

4-10) Charles was joined by the Duke of Perth, the 
Ogilvys under Lord Ogilvy, some Drummonds under 
Lord Strathallan, the Oliphants of Gask, and 200 
Robertsons of Struan. Lord George Murray, brother 
of the Duke of Atholl, who had been out in 1715, out 
in 1719, and later was un reconcilie, came in, and with 
him came Discord. He had dealt as a friend and ally 
with Cope at Crieff; his loyalty to either side was thus 
not unnaturally dubious ; he was suspected by Murray 
of Broughton; envied by Sullivan, a soldier of some 
experience; and though he was loyal to the last, — the 
best organiser, and the most daring leader, — Charles 
never trusted him, and his temper was always crossing 
that of the Prince. 

The race for Edinburgh now began, Cope bringing 
his troops by sea from Aberdeen, and Charles doing 
what Mar, in 1715, had never ventured. He crossed 
the Forth by the fords of Frew, six miles above Stir- 
ling, passed within gunshot of the castle, and now there 
was no force between him and Edinburgh save the de- 
moralised dragoons of Colonel Gardiner. The sole use 
of the dragoons was, wherever they came, to let the 
world know that the clans were at their heels. On 
September 16 Charles reached Corstorphine, and 
Gardiner's dragoons fell back on Coltbridge. 

On the previous day the town had been terribly per- 
turbed. The old walls, never sound, were dilapidated, 
and commanded by houses on the outside. Volunteers 
were scarce, and knew not how to load a musket. On 
Sunday, September 15, during sermon-time, " The bells 
were rung backwards, the drums they were beat " ; the 



304 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

volunteers, being told to march against the clans, lis- 
tened to the voices of mothers and aunts and of their 
own hearts, and melted like a mist. Hamilton's dra- 
goons and ninety of the late Porteous's Town Guard 
sallied forth, joining Gardiner's men at Coltbridge. A 
few of the mounted Jacobite gentry, such as Lord 
Elcho, eldest son of the Earl of Wemyss, trotted up 
to inspect the dragoons, who fled and drew bridle only 
at Musselburgh, six miles east of Edinburgh. 

The magistrates treated through a caddie or street- 
messenger with the Prince. He demanded surrender, 
the bailies went and came, in a hackney coach, between 
Charles's quarters, Gray's Mill, and Edinburgh, but on 
their return about 3 a.m. Lochiel with the Camerons 
rushed in when the Nether Bow gate was opened to 
admit the cab of the magistrates. Murray had guided 
the clan round by Merchiston. At noon Charles en- 
tered " that unhappy palace of his race," Holyrodfl ; 
and King James was proclaimed at Edinburgh Cross, 
while the beautiful Mrs. Murray, mounted, distributed 
white cockades. Edinburgh provided but few volun- 
teers, though the ladies tried to " force them 
out." 

Meanwhile Cope was landing his men at Dunbar; 
from Mr. John Home (author of 'Douglas, a Trag- 
edy') he learnt that Charles's force was under 2000 
strong. He himself had, counting the dragoons, an 
almost equal strength, with six field-pieces manned by 
sailors. 

On September 20 Cope advanced from Haddington, 
while Charles, with all the carriages he could collect for 



GLEDSMUIR 305 

ambulance duty, set forth from his camp at Dud- 
dingston Loch, under Arthur's Seat. Cope took the 
low road near the sea, while Charles took the high road, 
holding the ridge, till from Birsley brae he beheld Cope 
on the low level plain, between Seat on and Prestonpans. 
The manoeuvres of the clans forced Cope to change 
his front, but wherever he went, his men were more 
or less cooped up and confined to the defensive, with 
the park wall on their rear. 

Meanwhile Mr. Anderson of Whitburgh, a local 
sportsman who had shot ducks in the morass on Cope's 
left, brought to Charles news of a practicable path 
through that marsh. Even so, the path was wet as 
high as the knee, says Ker of Graden, who had recon- 
noitred the British under fire. He was a Roxburgh- 
shire laird, and there was with the Prince no better 
officer. 

In the grey dawn the clans waded through the marsh 
and leaped the ditch; Charles was forced to come with 
the second line fifty yards behind the first. The Mac- 
donalds held the right, as they said they had done at 
Bannockburn; the Camerons and Macgregors were on 
the left : they " cast their plaids, drew their blades," 
and, after enduring an irregular fire, swept the red- 
coat ranks away ; " they ran like rabets," wrote Charles 
in a genuine letter to James. Gardiner was cut down, 
his entire troop having fled, while he was directing a 
small force of foot which stood its ground. Charles 
stated his losses at a hundred killed and wounded, all 
by gunshot. Only two of the six field-pieces were dis- 
charged, by Colonel Whitefoord, who was captured. 



306 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Friends and foes agree in saying that the Prince de- 
voted himself to the care of the wounded of both sides. 
Lord George Murray states Cope's losses, killed, 
wounded, and taken, at 3000; Murray, at under 
1000. 

The Prince would fain have marched on England, but 
his force was thinned by desertions, and English rein- 
forcements would have been landed in his rear. For a 
month he had to hold court in Edinburgh, adored by 
the ladies, to whom he behaved with a coldness of which 
Charles II. would not have approved. " These are my 
beauties," he said, pointing to a burly-bearded High- 
land sentry. He " requisitioned " public money, and 
such horses and fodder as he could procure; but to 
spare the townsfolk from the guns of the castle he was 
obliged to withdraw his blockade. He sent messengers 
to France, asking for aid, but received little, though 
the Marquis Boyer d'Eguilles was granted as a kind 
of representative of Louis XV. His envoys to Sleat 
and Macleod sped ill, and Lovat only dallied, France 
only hesitated, while Dutch and English regiments 
landed in the Thames and marched to join General 
Wade at Newcastle. Charles himself received rein- 
forcements amounting to some 1500 men, under Lord 
Ogilvy, old Lord Pitsligo, the Master of Strathallan 
(Drummond), the brave Lord Balmerino, and the 
Viscount Dundee. A treaty of alliance with France, 
made at Fontainebleau, neutralised, under the Treaty 
of Tournay, 6000 Dutch who might not, by that treaty, 
fight against the ally of France. 

The Prince entertained no illusions. Without French 



THE PRINCE'S PERIL 307 

forces, he told D'Eguilles, "I cannot resist English, 

Dutch, Hessians, and Swiss." On October— he wrote 

his last extant letter from Scotland to King James. 
He puts his force at 8000 (more truly 6000), with 300 
horse. " With these, as matters stand, I shal have one 
decisive stroke for't, but iff the French" (do not?) 
" land, perhaps none. ... As matters stand I must 
either conquer or perish in a little while." 

Defeated in the heart of England, and with a prize 
of £30,000 offered for his head, he could not hope to 
escape. A victory for him would mean a landing of 
French troops, and his invasion of England had for its 
aim to force the hand of France. Her troops, with 
Prince Henry among them, dallied at Dunkirk till 
Christmas, and were then dispersed; while the Duke 
of Cumberland arrived in England from Flanders on 
October 19. 

On October 30 the Prince held a council of war. 
French supplies and guns had been landed at Stone- 
haven, and news came that 6000 French were ready at 
Dunkirk: at Dunkirk they were, but they never were 
ready. The news probably decided Charles to cross 
the Border; while it appears that his men preferred to 
be content with simply making Scotland again an inde- 
pendent kingdom, with a Catholic king. But to do this, 
with French aid, was to return to the state of things 
under Mary of Guise! 

The Prince, judging correctly, wished to deal his 
" decisive stroke " near home, at the old and now futile 
Wade in Northumberland. A victory would have dis- 



308 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

heartened England, and left Newcastle open to France. 
If Charles were defeated, his own escape by sea, in a 
country where he had many well-wishers, was possible, 
and the clans would have retreated through the 
Cheviots. Lord George Murray insisted on a march by 
the western road, Lancashire being expected to rise and 
join the Prince. But this plan left Wade, with a supe- 
rior force, on Charles's flank! The one difficulty, that 
of holding a bridge, say Kelso Bridge, over Tweed, was 
not insuperable. Rivers could not stop the High- 
landers. Macdonald of Morar thought Charles the 
best general in the army, and to the layman, consid- 
ering the necessity for an instant stroke, and the ad- 
vantages of the east, as regards France, the Prince's 
strategy appears better than Lord George's. But Lord 
George had his way. 

On October 31, Charles, reinforced by Cluny with 
400 Macphersons, concentrated at Dalkeith. On No- 
vember 1, the less trusted part of his force, under 
Tullibardine, with the Athol] men, moved south by 
Peebles and Moffat to Lockerbie, menacing Carlisle; 
while the Prince, Lord George, and the fighting clans 
marched to Kelso — a feint to deceive Wade. The main 
body then moved by Jedburgh, up Rule Water and 
down through Liddesdale, joining hands with Tulli- 
bardine on November 9, and bivouacking within two 
miles of Carlisle. On the 10th the Atholl men went 
to work at the trenches; on the 11th the army moved 
seven miles towards Newcastle, hoping to discuss Wade 
at Brampton on hilly ground. But Wade did not grat- 
ify them by arriving. 



MARCH OF CHARLES'S TROOPS 309 

On the 13th the Atholl men were kept at their spade- 
work, and Lord George in dudgeon resigned his com- 
mand (November 14), but at night Carlisle surren- 
dered, Murray and Perth negotiating. Lord George 
expressed his anger and jealousy to his brother, Tulli- 
bardine, but Perth resigned his command to pacify his 
rival. Wade feebly tried to cross country, failed, and 
went back to Newcastle. On November 10, with some 
4500 men (there had been many desertions), the march 
through Lancashire was decreed. Save for Mr. Town- 
ley and two Vaughans, the Catholics did not stir. 
Charles marched on foot in the van; he was a trained 
pedestrian ; the townspeople stared at him and his 
Highlanders, but only at Manchester (November 29-30) 
had he a welcome, enlisting about 150 doomed men. 
On November 27 Cumberland took over command at 
Lichfield; his foot were distributed between Tamworth 
and Stafford; his cavalry was at Newcastle-under- 
Lyme. Lord George was moving on Derby, but learn- 
ing Cumberland's dispositions he led a column to Con- 
gleton, inducing Cumberland to concentrate at Lich- 
field, while he himself, by way of Leek and Ashburn, 
joined the Prince at Derby. 

The army was in the highest spirits. The Duke of 
Richmond on the other side wrote from Lichfield 
(December 5), "If the enemy please to cut us off 
from the main army, they may; and also, if they 
please to give us the slip and march to London, I fear 
they may, before even this avant garde can come up 
with them ; . . . there is no pass to defend, . . . the 
camp at Finchley is confined to paper plans " — and 



310 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Wales was ready to join the Prince! Lord George 
did not know what Richmond knew. Despite the 
entreaties of the Prince, his Council decided to retreat. 
On December 6 the clans, uttering cries of rage, were 
set with their faces to the north. 

The Prince was now an altered man. Full of dis- 
trust, he marched not with Lord George in the rear, 
he rode in the van. 

Meanwhile Lord John Drummond, who, on November 
22, had landed at Montrose with 800 French soldiers, 
was ordered by Charles to advance with large Highland 
levies now collected and meet him as he moved north. 
Lord John disobeyed orders (received about Decem- 
ber 18). Expecting his advance, Charles most unhap- 
pily left the Manchester men and others to hold 
Carlisle, to which he would return. Cumberland took 
them all, — many were hanged. 

In the north, Lord Lewis Gordon routed Macleod at 
Inverurie (December 23), and defeated his effort to 
secure Aberdeen. Admirably commanded by Lord 
George, and behaving admirably for an irregular re- 
treating force, the army reached Penrith on December 
18, and at Clifton, Lord George and Cluny defeated 
Cumberland's dragoons in a rearguard action. 

On December 19 Carlisle was reached, and, as we 
saw, a force was left to guard the castle; all were 
taken. On December 20 the army forded the flooded 
Esk; the ladies, of whom several had been with them, 
rode it on their horses: the men waded breast-high, 
as, had there been need, they would have forded Tweed 
if the eastern route had been chosen, and if retreat 



CONCENTRATION OF THE ENEMY 311 

had been necessary. Cumberland returned to London 
on January 5, and Horace Walpole no longer dreaded 
" a rebellion that runs away." By different routes 
Charles and Lord George met (December 26) at Ham- 
ilton Palace. Charles stayed a night at Dumfries. 
Dumfries was hostile, and was fined ; Glasgow was also 
disaffected, the ladies were unfriendly. At Glasgow, 
Charles heard that Seaforth, chief of the Mackenzies, 
was aiding the Hanoverians in the north, combining 
with the great Whig clans, with Macleod, the Munroes, 
Lord Loudoun commanding some 2000 men, and the 
Mackays of Sutherland and Caithness. 

Meanwhile Lord John Drummond, Strathallan, and 
Lord Lewis Gordon, with Lord Macleod, were concen- 
trating to meet the Prince at Stirling, the purpose 
being the hopeless one of capturing the castle, the key 
of the north. With weak artillery, and a futile and 
foolish French engineer officer to direct the siege, they 
had no chance of success. The Prince, in bad health, 
stayed (January 4-10) at Sir Hugh Paterson's place, 
Bannockburn House. 

At Stirling, with his northern reinforcements, Charles 
may have had some seven or eight thousand men where- 
with to meet General Hawley (a veteran of Sheriff - 
muir) advancing from Edinburgh. Hawley encamped 
at Falkirk, and while the Atholl men were deserting by 
scores, Lord George skilfully deceived him, arrived on 
the Falkirk moor unobserved, and held the ridge above 
Hawley's position, while the General was lunching with 
Lady Kilmarnock. In the first line of the Prince's 
force the Macdonalds held the right wing, the Cam- 



312 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

erons (whom the great Wolfe describes as the bravest 
of the brave) held the left; with Stewarts of Appin, 
Frazers, and Macphersons in the centre. In the sec-, 
ond line were the Atholl men, Lord Lewis Gordon's 
levies, and Lord Ogilvy's. The Lowland horse and 
Drummond's French details were in the rear. The 
ground was made up of eminences and ravines, so that 
in the second line the various bodies were invisible to 
each other, as at Sheriffmuir — with similar results. 

When Hawley found that he had been surprised he 
arrayed his thirteen battalions of regulars and 1000 
men of Argyll on the plain, with three regiments of 
dragoons, by whose charge he expected to sweep away 
Charles's right wing; behind his cavalry were the luck- 
less militia of Glasgow and the Lothians. In all, he 
had from 10,000 to 12,000 men against, perhaps, 7000 
at most, for 1200 of Charles's force were left to con- 
tain Blakeney in Stirling Castle. Both sides, on ac- 
count of the heavy roads, failed to bring forward their 
guns. 

Hawley then advanced his cavalry up hill: their left 
faced Keppoch's Macdonalds; their right faced the 
Frazers, under the Master of Lovat, in Charles's cen- 
tre. Hawley then launched his cavalry, which were met 
at close range by the reserved fire of the Macdonalds 
and Frazers. Through the mist and rain the towns- 
folk, looking on, saw in five minutes " the break in the 
battle." Hamilton's and Ligonier's cavalry turned and 
fled. Cobham's wheeled and rode across the Highland 
left under fire, while the Macdonalds and Frazers pur- 
suing the cavalry found themselves among the Glas- 



HAWLEY DEFEATED 313 

gow militia, whom they followed, slaying. Lord George 
had no pipers to sound the recall ; they had flung their 
pipes to their gillies and gone in with the claymore. 

Thus the Prince's right, far beyond his front, were 
lost in the tempest ; while his left had discharged their 
muskets at Cobham's Horse, and could not load again, 
their powder being drenched with rain. They received 
the fire of Hawley's right, and charged with the clay- 
more, but were outflanked and enfiladed by some bat- 
talions drawn up en potence. Many of the second line 
had blindly followed the first : the 'rest shunned the 
action; Hawley's officers led away some regiments in 
an orderly retreat ; night fell ; no man knew what had 
really occurred till young Gask and young Strathallan, 
with the French and Atholl men, ventured into Falkirk, 
and found Hawley's camp deserted. The darkness, the 
rain, the nature of the ground, and the clans' want of 
discipline, prevented the annihilation of Hawley's 
army ; while the behaviour of his cavalry showed that 
the Prince might have defeated Cumberland's advanced 
force beyond Derby with the greatest ease, as the Duke 
of Richmond had anticipated. 

Perhaps the right course now was to advance on 
Edinburgh, but the hopeless siege of Stirling Castle 
was continued — Charles perhaps hoping much from 
Hawley's captured guns. 

The accidental shooting of young iEneas Macdonnell, 
second son of Glengarry, by a Clanranald man, begat 
a kind of blood-feud between the clans, and the un- 
happy cause of the accident had to be shot. Loch- 
garry, writing to young Glengarry after Culloden, says 



314 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

that " there was a general desertion in the whole 
army," and this was the view of the chiefs, who, on 
news of Cumberland's approach, told Charles (Janu- 
ary 29) that the army was depleted and resistance 
impossible. 

The chiefs were mistaken in point of fact: a review 
at Crieff later showed that even then only 1000 men 
were missing. As at Derby, and with right on his 
side, Charles insisted on meeting Cumberland. He did 
well, his men were flushed with victory, had sufficient 
supplies, were to encounter an army hot yet encour- 
aged by a refusal to face it, and, if defeated, had the 
gates of the hills open behind them. In a very tem- 
perately written memorial Charles placed these ideas 
before the chiefs. " Having told you my thoughts, I 
am too sensible of what you have already ventured and 
done for me, not to yield to your unanimous resolution 
if you persist." 

Lord George, Lovat, Lochgarry, Keppoch, Ardshiel, 
and Cluny did persist; the fatal die was cast; and 
the men who — well fed and confident — might have 
routed Cumberland, fled in confusion rather than re- 
treated, — to be ruined later, when, starving, outwearied, 
and with many of their best forces absent, they stag- 
gered his army at Culloden. Charles had told the 
chiefs, " I can see nothing but ruin and destruction to 
us in case we should retreat." 1 

This retreat embittered Charles's feelings against 
Lord George, who may have been mistaken — who, in- 

1 See the author's * History of Scotland,' iv. 446-500, where the 
evidence is examined. 



CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH 315 

deed, at Crieff, seems to have recognised his error (Feb- 
ruary 5) ; but he had taken his part, and during the 
campaign, henceforth, as at Culloden, distinguished 
himself by every virtue of a soldier. 

After the retreat Lord George moved on Aberdeen; 
Charles to Blair in Atholl ; thence to Moy, the house of 
Lady Mackintosh, where a blacksmith and four or five 
men ingeniously scattered Loudoun and the Macleods, 
advancing to take him by a night surprise. This was 
the famous Rout of Moy. 

Charles next (February 20) took Inverness Castle, 
and Loudoun was driven into Sutherland, and cut off 
by Lord George's dispositions from any chance of 
joining hands with Cumberland. The duke had now 
5000 Hessian soldiers at his disposal: these he would 
not have commanded had the Prince's army met him 
near Stirling. 

Charles was now at or near Inverness: he lost, 
through illness, the services of Murray, whose suc- 
cessor, Hay, was impotent as an officer of Commis- 
sariat. A gallant movement of Lord George into 
Atholl, where he surprised all Cumberland's posts, but 
was foiled by the resistance of his brother's castle, was 
interrupted by a recall to the north, and, on April 2, 
he retreated to the line of the Spey. Forbes of Cullo- 
den and Macleod had been driven to take refuge in 
Skye; but 1500 men of the Prince's best had been sent 
into Sutherland, when Cumberland arrived at Nairn 
(April 14), and Charles concentrated his starving 
forces on Culloden Moor. The Macphersons, the 
Frazers, the 1500 Macdonalds, and others in Suther- 



316 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

land were absent on various duties when " the wicked 
day of destiny " approached. 

The men on Cu'lloden Moor, a flat waste unsuited to 
the tactics of the clans, had but pxie biscuit apiece on 
the eve of the battle. Lord George " did not like the 
ground," and proposed to surprise kj a night attack 
Cumberland's force at Nairn. The Prince eagerly 
agreed, and, according to him, Clanranald's advanced 
men were in touch with Cumberland's outposts before 
Lord George convinced the Prince that retreat was 
necessary. The advance was lagging; the way bad 
been missed in the dark; dawn was at hand. There 
are other versions: in any case the hungry men were 
so outworn that many are said to have slept through 
next day's battle. 

A great mistake was made next day, if Lochgarry, 
who commanded the Macdonalds of Glengarry, and 
Maxwell of Kirkconnel are correct in saying that Lord 
George insisted on placing his Atholl men on the right 
wing. The Macdonalds had an old claim to the right 
wing, but as far as research enlightens us, their failure 
on this fatal day was not due to jealous anger. The 
battle might have been avoided, but to retreat was to 
lose Inverness and all chance of supplies. On the High- 
land right was the water of Nairn, and they were 
guarded by a wall which the Campbells pulled down, 
enabling Cumberland's cavalry to take them in flank. 
Cumberland had about 9000 men, including the Camp- 
bells. Chafes, according tp his muster-master, ^ad 
5000; of horse he had but a handful. 

The battle began with an artillery duel, during which 



CULLODEN 317 

the clans lost heavily, while their few guns were use- 
less, and their right flank was exposed by the breaking 
down of the protecting wall. After some unexplained 
and dangerous delay, Lord George gave the word to 
charge, in face of a blinding tempest of sleet, and him- 
self went in, as did Lochiel, claymore in hand. But 
though the order was conveyed by Ker of Graden first 
to the Macdonalds on the left, as they had to charge 
over a wider space of ground, the Camerons, Clan 
Chattan, and Macleans came first to the shock. 
" Nothing could be more desperate than their attack, or 
more properly received," says Whitefoord. The as- 
sailants were enfiladed by Wolfe's regiment, which 
moved up and took position at right angles, like the 
Fifty-second on the flank of the last charge of the 
French Guard at Waterloo. The Highland right broke 
through Barrel's regiment, swept over the guns, and 
died on the bayonets of the second line. They had 
thrown down their muskets after one fire, and, says 
Cumberland, stood " and threw stones for at least a 
minute or two before their total rout began." Prob- 
ably the fall of Lochiel, who was wounded and carried 
out of action, determined the flight. Meanwhile the 
left, the Macdonalds, menaced on the flank by cavalry, 
were plied at a hundred yards by grape. They saw 
their leaders, the gallant Keppoch and Macdonnell of 
Scothouse, with many others, fall under the grape-shot : 
they saw the right wing broken, and they did not come 
to the shock. If We may believe four sworn witnesses 
in a court of justice (July 24, 1752), whose testi- 
mony was accepted as the basis of a judicial decreet 



318 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

(January 10, 1756 ),* Keppoch was wounded while 
giving his orders to some of his men not to outrun 
the line in advancing, and was shot dead as a friend 
was supporting him. When all retreated they passed 
the dead body of Keppoch. 

The tradition constantly given in various forms that 
Keppoch charged alone, " deserted by the children of 
his clan," is worthless if sworn evidence may be 
trusted. 

As for the unhappy Charles, by the evidence of Sir 
Robert Strange, who was with him, he had " ridden 
along the line to the right animating the soldiers," and 
" endeavoured to rally the soldiers, who, annoyed by 
the enemy's fire, were beginning to quit the field." He 
" was got off the field when the men in general were 
betaking themselves precipitately to flight; nor was 
there any possibility of their being rallied." Yorke, 
an English officer, says that the Prince did not leave 
the field till after the retreat of the second line. 

So far the Prince's conduct was honourable and 
worthy of his name. But presently, on the advice of 
his Irish entourage, Sullivan and Sheridan, who al- 
ways suggested suspicions, and doubtless not forget- 
ting the great price on his head, he took his own way 
towards the west coast in place of joining Lord George 
and the remnant with him at Ruthven in Badenoch. On 
April 26 he sailed from Borradale in a boat, and began 
that course of wanderings and hairbreadth escapes in 
which only the loyalty of Highland hearts enabled him 

1 ' Register of Decreets,' vol. 482. 



AFTER CULLODEN 319 

at last to escape the ships that watched the isles and 
the troops that netted the hills. 

Some years later General Wolfe, then residing at 
Inverness, reviewed the occurrences, and made up his 
mind that the battle had been a dangerous risk for 
Cumberland, while the pursuit (though ruthlessly cruel) 
was inefficient. 

Despite Cumberland's insistent orders to give no 
quarter (orders justified by the absolutely false pre- 
text that Prince Charles had set the example), Loch- 
garry reported that the army had not lost more than a 
thousand men. Fire and sword and torture, the de- 
struction of tilled lands, and even of the shell-fish on 
the shore, did not break the spirit of the Highlanders. 
Many bands held out in arms, and Lochgarry was only 
prevented by the Prince's command from laying an 
ambush for Cumberland. The Campbells and the Mac- 
leods under their recreant chief, the Whig Macdon- 
alds under Sir Alexander of Sleat, ravaged the lands 
of the Jacobite clansmen; but the spies of Albemarle, 
who now commanded in Scotland, reported the Mac- 
leans, the Grants of Glenmoriston, with the Macpher- 
sons, Glengarry's men, and Lochiel's Camerons, as all 
eager " to do it again " if France would only help. 

But France was helpless, and when Lochiel sailed for 
France with the Prince only Cluny remained, hunted 
like a partridge in the mountains, to keep up the spirit 
of the Cause. Old Lovat met a long-deserved death by 
the executioner's axe, though it needed the evidence of 
Murray of Broughton, turned informer, to convict that 
fox. Kilmarnock and Balmerino also were executed ; the 



320 A SHORT HISTORY OP SCOTLAND 

good and brave Duke of Perth died on his way to 
France; the aged Tullibardine in the Tower; many 
gallant gentlemen were hanged; Lord George escaped, 
and is the ancestor of the present Duke of Atholl; 
many gentlemen took French service; others fought in 
other alien armies; three or four in the Highlands or 
abroad took the wages of spies upon the Prince. The 
£30,000 of French gold, buried near Loch Arkaig, 
caused endless feuds, kinsman denouncing kinsman. 
The secrets of the years 1746-1760 are to be sought 
in the Cumberland and Stuart MSS. in Windsor Gastle 
and the Record Office. 

Legislation, intended to scotch the snake of 
Jacobitism, began with religious persecution. The 
Episcopalian clergy had no reason to love triumphant 
Presbyterianism, and actively, or in sympathy, were 
favourers of the exiled dynasty. Episcopalian chapels, 
sometimes mere rooms in private houses, were burned, 
or their humble furniture was destroyed. All Episco- 
palian ministers were bidden to take the oath and pray 
for King George by September 1746, or suffer for the 
second offence transportation for life to the American 
colonies. Later, the orders conferred by Scottish bish- 
ops were made of no avail. Only with great difficulty 
and danger could parents obtain the rite of baptism for 
their children. Very little is said in our histories about 
the sufferings of the Episcopalians when it was their 
turn to be under the harrow. They were not violent, 
they murdered no Moderator of the General Assembly. 
Other measures were the Disarming Act, the prohibi- 
tion to wear the Highland dress, and the abolition of 



THE APPIN MURDER 321 

" hereditable jurisdictions " and the chief's right to 
call out his clansmen in arms. Compensation in money 
was paid, from £21,000 to the Duke of Argyll to £13, 
6s. 8d. to the clerks of the Registrar of Aberbrothock. 
The whole sum was £152,237, 15s. 4d. 

In 1754 an Act " annexed the forfeited estates of 
the Jacobites who had been out (or many of them) in- 
alienably to the Crown." The estates were restored 
in 1784 ; meanwhile the profits Were to be used for the 
improvement of the Highlands. If submissive tenants 
received better terms and larger leases than of old, 
Jacobite tenants were evicted for not being punctual 
with rent. Therefore, on May 14, 1752, some person 
unknown shot Campbell of Glenure, who was about 
evicting the tenants on the lands of Lochiel and Stew- 
art of Ardshiel in Appin. Campbell rode down from 
Fort William to Ballachulish ferry, and when he had 
crossed it said, " I am safe now I am out of my 
mother's country." But as he drove along the old road 
through the wood of Lettermore, perhaps a mile and 
a half south of Ballachulish House, the fatal shot was 
fired. For this crime James Stewart of the Glens was 
tried by a Campbell jury at Inverary, with the duke 
on the bench, and was, of course, convicted, and hanged 
on the top of a knoll above Ballachulish ferry. James 
was innocent, but Allan Breck Stewart was certainly 
an accomplice of the man with the gun, which, by the 
way, was the property neither of James Stewart nor 
of Stewart of Fasnacloich. The murderer was anxious 
to save James by avowing the deed, but his kinsfolk, 
saying, " They will only hang both James and you," 



322 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

bound him hand and foot and locked him up in the 
kitchen on the day of James's execution. 1 Allan lay 
for some weeks at the house of a kinsman in Rannoch, 
and escaped to France, where he had a fight with James 
Mor Macgregor, then a spy in the service of the Duke 
of Newcastle. 

This murder of " the Red Fox " caused all the more 
excitement, and is all the better remembered in Locha- 
ber and Glencoe, because agrarian violence in revenge 
for eviction has scarcely another example in the history 
of the Highlands. 

CONCLUSION 

Space does not permit an account of the assimilation 
of Scotland to England in the years between the Forty- 
five and our own time ; moreover, the history of this age 
cannot well be written without a dangerously close 
approach to many " burning questions " of our day. 
The History of the Highlands, from 1752 to the emi- 
grations witnessed by Dr. Johnson (1760-1780), and 
of the later evictions in the interests of sheep farms 
and deer forests, has never been studied as it ought 
to be in the rich manuscript materials which are easily 
accessible. The great literary Renaissance of Scot- 
land, from 1745 to the death of Sir Walter Scott; the 
years of Hume, a pioneer in philosophy and in history, 
and of the Rev. Principal Robertson (with him and 
Hume, Gibbon professed, very modestly, that he did 

1 Tradition in Glencoe. 



CONCLUSION 323 

not rank) ; the times of Adam Smith, of Burns, and 
of Sir Walter, not to speak of the Rev. John Home, 
that foremost tragic poet, may be studied in many a 
history of literature. According to Voltaire, Scotland 
led the world in all studies, from metaphysics to gar- 
dening. We think of Watt, and add engineering. 

The brief and inglorious administration of the Earl 
of Bute at once gave openings in the public service to 
Scots of ability, and excited that English hatred of 
these northern rivals which glows in Churchill's ' Sat- 
ires,' while this English jealousy aroused that Scot- 
tish hatred of England which is the one passion that 
disturbs the placid letters of David Hume. 

The later alliance of Pitt with Henry Dundas made 
Dundas far more powerful than any Secretary for 
Scotland had been since Lauderdale, and confirmed the 
connection of Scotland with the services in India. But, 
politically, Scotland, till the Reform Bill, had scarcely 
a recognisable existence. The electorate was tiny, and 
great landholders controlled the votes, whether genu- 
ine or created by legal fiction — " faggot votes." Mu- 
nicipal administration in the late eighteenth and early 
nineteenth centuries was terribly corrupt, and reform 
was demanded, but the French Revolution, producing 
associations of Friends of the People, who were prose- 
cuted and grievously punished in trials for sedition, 
did not afford a fortunate moment for peaceful 
reforms. 

But early in the nineteenth century Jeffrey, editor 
of ' The Edinburgh Review,' made it the organ of 
Liberalism, and no less potent in England than in 



324 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

Scotland ; while Scott, on the Tory side, led a following 
of Scottish penmen across the Border in the service 
of ' The Quarterly Review.' With ' Blackwood's Maga- 
zine ' and Wilson, Hogg, and Lockhart ; with Jeffrey 
and ' The Edinburgh,' the Scottish metropolis almost 
rivalled London as the literary capital. 

About 1818 Lockhart recognised the superiority of 
the Whig wits in literature ; but against them all Scott 
is a more than sufficient set-off. The years of stress 
between Waterloo (1815) and the Reform Bill (1832) 
made Radicalism (fostered by economic causes, the 
enormous commercial and industrial growth, and the 
unequal distribution of its rewards) perhaps even 
more pronounced north than south of the Tweed. In 
1820 " the Radical war " led to actual encounters be- 
tween the yeomanry and the people. The ruffianism 
of the Tory paper ' The Beacon ' caused one fatal duel, 
and was within an inch of leading to another, in which 
a person of the very highest consequence would have 
" gone on the sod." For the Reform Bill the mass of 
Scottish opinion, so long not really represented at all, 
was as eager as for the Covenant. So triumphant was 
the first Whig or Radical majority under the new 
system, that Jeffrey, the Whig pontiff, perceived that 
the real struggle was to be " between property and no 
property," between Capital and Socialism. This cir- 
cumstance had always been perfectly clear to Scott 
and the Tories. 

The watchword of the eighteenth century in litera- 
ture, religion, and politics had been " no enthusiasm." 
But throughout the century, since 1740, " enthusiasm," 



THE DISRUPTION 325 

" the return to nature," had gradually conquered till 
the rise of the Romantic school with Coleridge and 
Scott. In religion the enthusiastic movement of the 
Wesleys had altered the face of the Church in England, 
while in Scotland the " Moderates " had lost position, 
and " zeal " or enthusiasm pervaded the Kirk. The 
question of lay patronage of livings had passed 
through many phases since Knox wrote, " It pertaineth 
to the people, and to every several congregation, to 
elect their minister." In 1833, immediately after the 
passing of the Reform Bill, the return to the primitive 
Knoxian rule was advocated by the " Evangelical " or 
" High Flying " opponents of the Moderates. Dr. 
Chalmers, a most eloquent person, whom Scott re- 
garded as truly a man of genius, was the leader of 
the movement. The Veto Act, by which the votes of 
a majority of heads of families were to be fatal to 
the claims of a patron's presentee, had been passed by 
the General Assembly ; it was contrary to Queen Anne's 
Patronage Act of 1711, — a measure carried, contrary 
to Harley's policy, by a coalition of English Church- 
men and Scottish Jacobite members of Parliament. 
The rejection, under the Veto Act, of a presentee by 
the church of Auchterarder, was declared illegal by 
the Court of Session and the judges in the House of 
Lords (May 1839); the Strathbogie imbroglio, "with 
two Presbyteries, one taking its orders from the Court 
of Session, the other from the General Assembly " 
(1837-184*1), brought the Assembly into direct conflict 
with the law of the land. Dr. Chalmers would not 
allow the spiritual claims of the Kirk to be suppressed 



326 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND 

by the State. " King Christ's Crown Honours " were 
once more in question. On May 18, 1843, the fol- 
lowers of the principles of Knox and Andrew Melville 
marched out of the Assembly into Tanfield Hall, and 
made Dr. Chalmers Moderator, and themselves " The 
Free Church of Scotland." In 1847 the hitherto sepa- 
rated synods of various dissenting bodies came together 
as United Presbyterians, and in 1902 they united with 
the Free Church as " the United Free Church," while 
a small minority, mainly Highland, of the former Free 
Church, now retains that title, and apparently repre- 
sents Knoxian ideals. Thus the Knoxian ideals have 
modified, even to this day, the ecclesiastical life of Scot- 
land, while the Church of James I., never by persecution 
extinguished (nee tamen consumebatur), has continued 
to exist and develop, perhaps more in consequence of 
love of the Liturgy than from any other cause. 

Meanwhile, and not least in the United Free Church, 
extreme tenacity of dogma has yielded place to very 
advanced Biblical criticism ; and Knox, could he revisit 
Scotland with all his old opinions, might not be wholly 
satisfied by the changes wrought in the course of more 
than three centuries. The Scottish universities, dis- 
couraged and almost destitute of pious benefactors 
since the end of the sixteenth century, have profited by 
the increase of wealth and a comparatively recent out- 
burst of generosity. They always provided the cheap- 
est, and now they provide the cheapest and most effi- 
cient education that is offered by any homes of learn- 
ing of mediaeval foundation. 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, 188, 198, 213 
Aberdeen, 1st Earl of, 238 
Aberdeen University, 83 
Aboyne, Viscount, 200 
Adamnan, 6-7 
Adamson, Patrick, Abp. of St. 

Andrews, 149, 159 
iEthelfrith, King, 9 
Agnes of Dunbar, 51 
Agricola, 1, 2 
Aidan, King of Argyll, 6-9 
Airlie, 1st Earl of, 200 
Airlie, 2d Earl of, 212 
Albany, Duke of (Robert, Earl 

of Fife), 57, 58, 60 
Albany, Duke of (Murdoch), 58, 

60, 62 
Albany (brother of James III.), 

70, 73-5 
Albany, Duke of, 84, 85-6 
Albany, Alexander of, 62 
Albany, Walter of, 61 
Albemarle, 2d Earl of, 319 
Alexander I., King, 19 
Alexander II., King, 33-4 
Alexander III., King, 34-5 
Alyth, 213 

American Colonies, 254 
Angles, 7 

Angus, Earl of Moray, 22 
Angus, 4th Earl of (the Red 

Douglas), 68, 70 
Angus, 5th Earl of, 74-6 
Angus, 6th Earl of, 85-7, 88, 

102, 103 
Angus, 8th Earl of, 151, 156, 

157-8, 160 
Angus MacFergus, 10 
Angus Og (son of James III.), 

73, 79 
Annandale, Earl of, 252 
Annandale lands, 21, 38 
Anne, Princess, of Denmark 

(wife of James VI.), 163 
Anne, Queen, 257, 263, 266, 268- 

70, 275 
Antrim, Earl of, 188 
Aodh, 13 

Appin, Stewarts of, 288, 301, 312 
Arbroath, Hamilton of, 151 
Arbroath Abbey, 33, 101 
Ardoch, 4 



Ardshiel, 301, 302, 314 
Ardtornish Castle, 59 
Argyll, 1st Earl of, 75 
Argyll, 2d Earl of, 79, 81 
Argyll, 3d Earl of, 87, 88 
Argyll, 4th Earl of, 98, 113 
Argyll, 5th Earl of, in band 
against Riccio, 136 ; band 
against Darnley, 138 ; murder 
band, 139, 152; of Mary's 
party, 141, 144 ; detached by 
Murray, 145 ; otherwise men- 
tioned, 112, 113, 116, 134. 136 
Argyll, 6th Earl of, 150, 151 
Argyll, 7th Earl of, 165, 166 
Argyll, Marquess of (8th Earl) ; 
imprisons Montrose, 192 ; Mont- 
rose's successes against, 198 ; 
at Kilsyth, 199-200; alliance 
with Independents, 206-7 ; deal- 
ings with Charles II., 207-8, 
210, 212; relations with Monk, 
215-6 ; overtures to Protest- 
ers, 219 ; arrested in London, 
220 ; trial and death of, 221-2 ; 
estimate of, 188 ; mentioned, 
189, 205 
Argyll, 9th Earl of (Lord Lome), 
of Cavalier party, 215 ; trial 
and escape of, 237-8 ; Car- 
stares intrigues with, 238-9 ; 
returns to Scotland, 240-1 ; 
executed, 241 ; mentioned, 233-6 
Argyll, 1st Duke of, 249 
Argyll, 2d Duke of (Red John of 
the Battles) ; Commissioner, 
269 ; desires repeal of Union, 
274 ; Sheriffmuir, 279 ; strong 
position of, 281 ; disgraced, 
282 ; relations with George I. 
and Prince of Wales, 284-5 ; 
the Porteous riot, 290-3 ; op- 
poses Walpole, 293 ; death of, 
302; mentioned, 273 
Argyll, 3d Duke of (Earl of 
Islay) ; negotiates with Jacob- 
ites, 282; in power, 287; the 
Porteous riot, 291-2 ; relations 
with Tweeddale, 302; other- 
wise mentioned, 278, 280-1, 
285, 288, 321 
Argyll, See of, 18 
Armstrong, Hecky, 145 



327 



INDEX 



Armstrongs, 28, 87, 166, 176 
Arran, Earl of (Sir Thomas 

Boyd), 72 
Arran, 1st Earl of, 85, 86, 87 
Arran, 2d Earl of, see Chatel- 

herault 
Arran, 3d Earl of ; rejected by 

Elizabeth, 120; suit to Queen 

Mary, 127 ; madness of, 127, 

130; mentioned, 109, 118, 119 
Arran, Earl of (Capt. James 

Stewart), 152, 153, 155, 156, 

157-8 
Assynt, Macleod of, 261 
Atholl, Earl of (1306), 44 
Atholl, English Earl of, 50 
Atholl, Earl of (Walter), 64 
Atholl, Earl of (1480-8), 74, 76 
Atholl, Earl of (1566), 137, 150, 

151 
Atholl, Earl of (1593-5), 172 
Atholl, Earl of (Murray) (1640), 

191, 212 
Atholl, Marquess of, 230-1, 243, 

250 
Atholl, 1st Duke of, 268 
Atholl, 2d Duke of, 300 
Atterbury, Bp., 275, 289 
Auchterarder, 295, 298, 325 
Ayala, 79; cited, 82, 83 
Aymer de Valence, 44 

Bacon, Lord, 175 

Bagimont, 35 

Baillie, Gen., 198-9 

Baillie, Principal, 219 ; cited, 

198 n. ; quoted, 187, 189, 205 
Balcarres, 3d Earl of, 243, 244, 

248 
Balfour, Sir James, 140, 151-3 
Balhaldy, William Drummond of 

(Macgregor), 299 
Ballantyne, Sir Wm„ 226 
Ballechin, Stewart of, 250 
Balliol, Edward, 21, 23, 37, 38, 

49 ; crowned King, 50 
Balliol, John, 21, 23, 37-9 
Balloch, Donald, 62, 70 
Balmerino, Lord (1634), 182 
Balmerino, Lord (1745), 306, 

319 
Bannatyne (secretary of Knox), 

148 
Bannockburn, 46 
Barbour, 55 

Barrel, , 317 

Barton, Capt., 80 
Battles and Fights : 

Aberdeen, 198 and n. 

Airs Moss (1680), 235 

Alford, 199 

Alnwick (1093), 16 

Alnwick (1174), 32 



Battles and Fights — continued 
Ancrum Moor (1545), 103 
Arkinholm, 68 
Auldearn, 199 
Bannockburn (1314), 46 
Bauge" Bridge, 59 
Bothwell Bridge, 234 
By land Abbey (1322), 47 
Carbisdale (1650), 209 
Carham (1018), 12 
" Cleanse the Causeway " 

(1520), 86 
Clifton, 310 
Corrichie, 131 
Crevant (1423), 60 
Cromdale Haugh (1690), 253 
Culloden, 315-8 
Degsastane (603), 9 
Drumclog (1679), 233 
Dryfe Sands, 165 
Dunbar (1296), 39 
Dunbar (1650), 210-11 
Dupplin (1332), 49-50 
Falkirk (1297), 41 
Falkirk (1745), 311-4 
Flodden (1513), 81-2 
Glenrinnes, 165 
Glenshiel (1719), 283 
Haddon Rig (1542), 94 
Halidon Hill (1333), 50 
Harlaw, 59 
Homildon Hill, 57 
Inch of Perth (1396), 57 
Inverkeithing, 213 
Inverlochy (1431), 62 
Inverlochy (1645), 198 
Inverurie, 310 
Killiecrankie, 250-1 
Kilsyth, 200 
Lagny (1430), 64 
Lanark (1297), 40 
Langside Hill (1568), 140 
Largs (1263), 35 
Loch Garry, 216 
Lochmaben (1484), 74 
Loudon Hill (Drumclog) 

(1307), 45 
Malplaquet, 280 
Marston Moor (1644), 197 
Mauchline, 205 
Methven Wood (1306), 44 
Mons Graupius, 3 
Mytton-on-Swale, 47 
Naseby (1645), 199 
Nectan's Mere (685), 9 
Neville's Cross (1346), 51 
Orleans (1429), 60 
Otterburn (1388), 56 
Philiphaugh, 201 
Pinkie Cleugh (1547), 108 
Preston (1715), 279 
Prestonpans, 305-6 
Ramiliies, 271 



INDEX 



329 



Battles and Fights — continued 
Roslin (1293), 41 
Rouvray (1429), 60 
Rullion Green, 226 
Sark Water (1449), 67 
Sauchie Burn (1488), 76 
Sheriffmuir (1715), 279-80 
Standard, Battle of the, 23 
Stirling Bridge (1297), 40 
Tippermuir, 198 
Towton, 70 
"Turn Again," 87 
Verneuil (1424), 60 
Wigan and Warrington, 206 
Worcester (1651), 213 

Beaton, Cardinal (Regent), im- 
prisoned, 98 ; released, 99 ; 
joined by Arran, 101 ; murder 
of, 103-4 ; estimate of, 93 ; 
achievements of, 84-5, 104-5, 
126 

Beaton, James, Abp. of St. An- 
drews, 85, 86, 91 

Beaufort, Cardinal, 60, 64 

Beaufort, Jane (wife of James 
I.), 60, 61, 64 

Bellenden, , 227 

Bells, 28 

Benedict XIII., Anti-pope, 58-9 

Bernicia, 7-8 

Berwick : 

English possession of, 39, 50, 

75 
Scottish possession of, 47, 70 

Berwick, Duke of, 276, 277 

Binns, Dalziel of, 225-8, 236 

Birrenswark, 4 

Black, Mr. David, 166 

Blackness Castle, 175 

Blair Atholl Castle, 250, 252, 
302, 315 

Blakeney, , 312 

Blind Harry, 76; cited, 40, 42 
and n. 

Boedhe, 13 

Bolingbroke, Vise, 275, 276, 281, 
289 

Bolton Castle, 143 

Bonshaw, , 236 

Border feuds, 80 

Border lairds, 71 

Border raids, 94, 166 

Borlum, Mackintosh of, 278-9, 
285 

Boston (Preacher of Ettrick), 295 

Both well, Earl of (Hepburn, 
Lord Hailes), 76, 78 

Bothwell, Earl of (John Ram- 
say), 78, 79 

Bothwell, Earl of (1534), 87, 88 

Bothwell, Earl of (James), im- 
prisoned, 130 ; summoned by 
Mary, 135 ; relations with 



Darnley, 136 ; murder of Ric- 
cio, 137 ; joins Mary, 137 ; 
band against Darnley, 138 ; 
murder band, 139, 152 ; Mary's 
letter to, from Glasgow, 139 ; 
marries Mary, 140 ; escape 
and death of, 140 ; estimate of, 
130 

Bothwell, Earl of (Francis Stew- 
art), plots and attacks of, 
against James, 161, 164, 165 ; 
escapades of, 163 ; alliance 
with the Catholic earls, 165; 
alliance with Gowrie and 
Atholl, 172; estimate of, 157, 
163 

Bothwellhaugh, Hamilton of, 145 

Bourignon, Antoinette, 294 

Bower cited, 59, 60 

Bowes, Robert, 153 

Boyd, Lord (1566), 137 

Boyd, Lord (1640), 191 

Boyds, 71 

Breadalbane, 1st Earl of, 254-5 

Breda, treaty of (1650), 209 

Brett, Capt., 300 

British of Strathclyde, 7 

Brodie, Laird of, 182 

Broughton, John Murray of, ne- 
giates surrender of Carlisle, 
309; invalided, 315; informs 
against Lovat, 319 ; on Pres- 
tonpans, 306 ; mentioned, 293, 
299, 303 

Broughton, Mrs. Murray of, 
304 

Broughty Castle, 108 

Brown, Prof. Hume, quoted, 176, 
245 

Brown, John, 240 

Bruce, House of, 21, 23, 37 

Bruce, Christian, 51 

Bruce, Edward, 45, 46 

Bruce, Marjory, 47 

Bruce, Nigel, 44 

Bruce, Robert (the Old), 38 

Bruce, Robert, King, see Rob- 
ert. 

Bruce, Rev. Mr., 166, 168, 171-2 

Brude, King, 6 

Brunston, Crichton of, 103 

Buccleuch, 2d Earl of, 197 

Buccleuch, Scots of, 68 

Buccleuch, Sir Walter Scott of 
(1526), 87, 102 

Buccleuch, Scott of (1570), 146 

Buccleuch, Walter Scott of 
(1596), 165 

Buchan, Earl of (1421), 59 

Buchan, Earl of (1482), 74 

Buchan, Earl of (1574), 150 

Buchan, Gen., 254 

Buchanan, , (1745), 300 



330 



INDEX 



Buchanan, George, 93, 143, 146; 
tutor of James VI., 151-2; 
cited, 73, 76 

Buckingham, Earl of, 180 

Burghs, 28-9 

Burley, John Balfour of (Kin- 
loch), 232 

Burnet, Abp. of Glasgow, 226, 
228 

Burns, Robert, 323 

Bute, Earl of, 323 

Cadogan, Lord, 281 

Caledonians, 4 

Callendar, Sir Alex. Livingstone 
of, 65, 66 

Cambuskenneth, first Parliament 
at (1326), 47 

Camelon, 3 

Cameron, Allan, 276 

Cameron, Richard (Preacher), 
234, 235 

Cameron, Clan, 57 

Camerons, 305, 311-2, 317 

Campbell, Sir Nial, 44 

Campbell clan, 163 

Campbells, 88, 316, 319 

Cannon, Gen., 250, 252 

Canterbury and York, contro- 
versy between, 18, 19, 20 

Carberry Hill, 140 

Carey, Sir Robert, 173 

Cargill, Rev. Donald, 234, 235, 
236 

Carlisle t 

English seizure of (1091), 16 
Scottish sieges of (1174), 32; 

(1294), 39 
Surrendered to Prince Charles, 
309 ; retaken by Cumberland, 
310 

Carlisle Castle, 22, 141, 166 

Carlos, Don, 131 

Carnwath, Lockhart of, 270, 285, 
288-9; cited, 275; quoted, 286 

Caroline, Queen, 291 

Carrick, Earl of (Robert Bruce), 
49 

Carstares, Rev. William (" Car- 
dinal"), 238-9, 245, 257 

Carteret, 299 

Carthusians, 64 

Cassilis, Earl of (1543), 97, 100, 
103 

Cassilis, Earl of (1661), 224 

Catherine de Medici, 127 

Cecil, Wm. (Lord Burghley), 11, 
133-4, 172 

Celts : 

Strongholds of, 22 
Tribal customs of, 24-5 

Cessford, Kers of, 71, 87 



Chalmers, Dr., 325-6 

Charles I., King of England, 
Scottish Ecclesiastical policy 
of, 124-5 ; Act of Revocation, 
180 ; ignorant of the Scots, 
180; visits Scotland (1633), 
181 ; Book of Canons, 182-4 ; 
refuses Presbyterian demands, 
185 ; war in Scotland, 188 ; 
truce, 189 ; short Parliament, 
190 ; gives way, 191 ; servile 
to Scottish Parliament, 193 ; 
the Civil War (1642), 194; 
seeks aid from Scotland, 196 ; 
Naseby, 199 ; betrayed by the 
Scots, 204 ; The Engagement, 
205 ; executed, 207 ; mentioned, 
179, 206 

Charles II., King of England, 
Argyll's dealings with, 207-8, 
210, 212; relations with Mont- 
rose, 208 ; signs the Cove- 
nants, 209, 213; reaches 
Scotland, 209 ; in Argyll's 
hands, 210; the Start, 212; 
defeat and flight at Worcester, 
213; joined by Lome, 215-6; 
Sharp an agent to, 218 ; res- 
toration of, 218 ; relations 
with Lauderdale, 220, 224 ; 
relations with the Kirk, 221 ; 
Rye House plot, 238-9 ; death 
of, 240 ; estimate of, 240 ; men- 
tioned, 220, 226, 227, 229, 237, 
238 

Charles VII., King of France, 59 

Charles VIII., King of France, 65 

Charles XII., King of Sweden, 
276 

Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, 
birth and childhood of, 283 ; at 
Gaeta, 289; in Paris (1744), 
300 ; rising of '45, 300 ft 5 . ; 
price on, 301 ; Prestonpans, 
305-6 ; Culloden, 318 ; escape 
and wanderings, 318-9 

Chatelard, 132 

Chatelherault, Duke of (2d Earl 
of Arran), regency of, 98, 100; 
relations with Angus, 102 ; ob- 
tains Duchy, 109 ; deserts 
Mary of Guise, 120; of Mary 
Stuart's party, 144 ; death of, 
149 ; estimate of, 98 ; men- 
tioned, 106, 118, 122, 134 

Chattan, Clan, 57, 301, 317 

Chepman, , 83 

Church, pre-Reformation : 

Agriculture fostered by regu- 
lars, 27 
Condition of, under James V., 
89-92 



INDEX 



331 



Church, pre-Reformation — con- 
tinued 
Councils, 34 

England, attitude towards, 43 
Lands of, 27-8 

Last Provincial Council of, 115 
Property of, annexed by 

Crown, 161, 180 
Reform of, attempted (1549- 

52), 111; (1555), 115 
Taxation of, 35 

Clanranald, 255, 280, 288 

Clarence, Duke of, 60 

Claverhouse, John Graham of, 
see Dundee, Vise. 

Cleland, Col., 252 

Clement III., Pope, 33 

Clementina Sobieska, Princess, 
283, 288, 289 

Clifford, , 40 

Cluny, see Macpherson. 

Cobham, , 312, 313 

Cochrane, (1482), 74 

Cochrane, Sir John, 240 

Cockburn, Thomas, 73 

Cokky, 120 

Coldingham Abbey, 104 n. 

Coleridge, 325 

Colkitto, Alastair Macdonald, 
196, 197-202 

Coltbridge, 303-4 

Columba, 6-7 

Colville, John, 165 

Comyn, Earl of Buchan, 37, 
38 

Comyn, John, Earl of Badenoch 
(the Red), 37, 39, 41, 44 

Constantine II., King, 10, 11 

Cope, Sir John, 302-5 

Corryarrick pass, 302 

Corsack, Laird of, 225-6 

Covenanters, 187-9 (see also 
Kirk — Covenant) 

Cowton Moor, 23 

Craigmillar Castle, 138 

Cranmer, Abp., 109 

Crawford, 3d Earl of, 67 

Crawford, 5th Earl of, 76 

Crawford, 6th Earl of, 82 

Crawford, Earl of, 162 

Crawford, Earl of (1662), 224 

Crawford, Earl of (1690), 252 

Crawford, Thomas, 145, 146 

Crawford family, 161 

Cressingham, 40 

Crichton, Sir Wm., 65, 66 

Cromwell, Oliver, Kirk policy of, 
195, 196; after Naseby, 199; 
against Engagers, 205-6 ; Dun- 
bar victory, 210-11 ; takes 
Edinburgh Castle, 2ft2 ; threat- 
ens Leslie, 213 ; Worcester 



victory, 213 ; Protectorate and 
death of, 216; mentioned, 214, 
232 234 

Cromwell, Richard, 216 

Croziers, 28 

Culdees, 17 

Culloden, 315-9 

Culloden, Forbes of (1725), 287 

Culloden, Forbes of (1745), 315 

Cumberland, 15, 16, 19, 32 

Cumberland, Duke of, 307, 309- 
11, 313-7, 319 

Cumbernauld, Sir Walter Flem- 
ing of, 61 

Cumbernauld band, 191, 192 

Curie, Mr., 5 n. 

Dacre, Thomas, 82, 88 
Dalriadic Scots, 4, 7, 8 
Dairy, 225 

Dairy, Chieseley of, 247-8 
Dalwhinnie pass, 302 
Dalziel, see Binns. 

Dampier, , 261 

Darien expedition, 258-9 ff., 266, 

271 
Darnley, Earl of, marriage of, 

134 ; relations with Bothwell, 

135 ; murder of Riccio, 137 ; 
hated by all, 138 ; murder band 
against, 139, 152 ; estimate of, 
135 ; mentioned, 133, 157 

D'Aubigny, Esme" Stuart, see 
Lennox. 

David I., King, relations of, with 
Normans, 21 ; exploits and pol- 
icy of, 22-4 ; conditions un- 
der, 25-8, 31 ; mentioned, 19, 
29-30 

David II., King, 47, 49-52 

David, Earl of Huntingdon, 24, 
38 

Deane, , 214 

Defoe, 272 

D'Eguilles, Marquis Boyer, 306 

Deira, 9 

Derneley, Sir John Stewart of, 
59, 65 

Derwentwater, Earl of, 279 

De Roubay, 109 

D'Esse, Sieur, 108 

Dominicans, 34, 101 

Donald Ban, King, 19, 24 

Donald Dubh, 79, 103 

Donald Mac Alpine, King of 
Cumbria, 10 

D'Orleans, Due (Regent), 277 

Douglas, 1st Earl of, 51, 52 

Douglas, 2d Earl of, 56-8 

Douglas, 3d Earl of, 59 

Douglas, 5th Earl of, 65 

Douglas, 6th Earl of, 66 



332 



INDEX 



Douglas, 7th Earl of, 66 

Douglas, 8th Earl of, 66 

Douglas, 9th Earl of, 68, 70, 74 

Douglas, Archibald (Tineman), 
50 

Douglas, Archibald (of Whitting- 
ham), 149, 160 

Douglas, David, 66 

Douglas, Gawain (Poet), 84 

Douglas, Sir George (brother of 
Angus), 95, 97-103 

Douglas, George, 136 

Douglas, Lord James (The Good), 
44-7 

Douglas, John, Abp. of St. An- 
drews, 148, 149 

Douglas, Robert (Preacher), 228 

Douglas, Sir Wm., 39 

Douglas, House of, 66 n., 67, 84, 
97 ; Red Douglases, 68-9 ; 
treachery of, 75 ; wars of, 148 

Dowart, Sir John Maclean of 
(1689), 255 

D'Oysel, Mons., 107, 109 

Dowden, Bp., quoted, 90 

Drimnin, Maclean of, 301 

Drummond, Lord John (1715), 
277 

Drummond, Lord John (1745), 
310, 311, 312 

Dryburgh Abbey, 27, 103 and n. 

Duart, Lachlan Maclean of, 162, 
166 

Dudley, Lord Robert, see Leices- 
ter. 

Dumbarton Castle : 

Covenanters' possession of, 188 
Importance of, 77, 146 
Lennox's seizure of (1580), 

153 
Macgregors' attempt on, 278 
mentioned, 101, 207 

Dumfries, 311 

Dumfriesshire, 285 

Dun, Erskine of, 113 

Dunavertie, 204-5 

Dunbar, (Poet), 83 

Dunbar, Earl of (Sir Geo. Hume), 
173 

Dunbar Castle, 51, 74 

Duncan (son of Malcolm Can- 
more), 15, 16, 19 

Duncan, King of Strathclyde, 12-3 

Duncanson, Major, 256, 258 

Dundas, Henry, 323 

Dundee, Viscount (John Graham 
of Claverhouse), harries con- 
venticlers, 233-4, 240, 241; af- 
fair of John Brown, 240 ; acts 
with Melfort, 243 ; declares 
for King James, 248 ; Highland 
force of, 248-51 ; Killiecrankie, 



250-1; death of, 251; other- 
wise mentioned, 56, 243-4, 245, 
306 

Dundee, 167, 198, 213 

Dundee Castle, 40 

Dunfermline, Lord (Alex Seton), 
173 

Dunkeld, 10 

Dunottar Castle, 241 

Eadgar (son of Malcolm Can- 
more), 19 
Eadgar iEtheling, 15 
Eadgyth (Matilda), 19 
Eadmund (son of Malcolm Can- 
more), 19 
Earlshall, Bruce of, 235 
Edinburgh : 

Burning of (1384), 56; (1544), 

102 
Filth of, 215 
Holyrood : 

Chapel, 182, 242, 243 
Congregation's seizure of, 

119 
Mob invasion of (1563), 133 
Somerset's devastation of, 

108 
mentioned, 27, 65 
James VIII. proclaimed at, 

304 
Mint seized by Congregation, 

119 
Race mixture around, 8 
Riots in: 

"Cleanse the Causeway," 86 
Franciscan Monastery 

wrecked, 100 
No Popery (1686), 242 
Porteous, 290-3 
Protestant mob's (1558), 

114; (1563), 133 
St. Giles' Church, in (1637), 
183 
Town's College, 178 
Edinburgh Castle : 

Covenanters' capture of. 188 
Cromwell's capture of, 212 
Drummond's attempt on 

(1715), 277 
Jacobite possession of, 244, 

248 
Marian stronghold, 145, 146 ; 

surrenders, 147 
Mary of Guise sheltered in, 

121 
Otherwise mentioned, 12, 45, 
51, 225 
Edmund, King of England, 

11 
Edward (son of Malcolm Can- 
more), 16 



INDEX 



333 



Edward the Elder, King of Eng- 
land, 11 

Edward I., King of England, 23, 
37-41, 43-5 

Edward II., King of England, 
45-7 

Edward III., King of England, 
49-52 

Edward IV., King of England, 
68, 70-1, 74, 75 

Edward VI., King of England, 
109, 110 

Egfrith, King, 9 

Elcho, Lord (1745), 304 

Elizabeth, Queen of England ; 
accession of, 114 ; subsidises 
the Congregation, 120 ; rejects 
Arran's suit, 120, 127 ; Pro- 
tectress of Scotland, 122 ; in- 
sults Mary Stuart, 128 ; re- 
fuses to settle the succession, 
128 ; negotiations for Mary's 
meeting with, 130 ; offers Dud- 
ley to Mary, 131, 134 ; after 
Darnley's murder, 143-5 ; in- 
trigues against Lennox, 153 ; 
death of Morton, 153; Raid of 
Ruthven, 156 ; Gray's mission 
to, 158 ; allowance to James, 
159-60 ; execution of Mary, 
160 ; relations with James, 
168; death of, 173; quoted on 
presbyteries, 155 ; mentioned, 
141, 162 

Elliots, 28 

Elphinstone, Bp., 83 

England : 

Alliance with Scotland (1586), 

159 
Conquest of Scotland the aim 

of, 83 
Corruption of Scottish noble- 
men the policy of, 78 
Gunpowder Plot, 173 
Overlordship claims of, 11, 16, 
35, 38, 93, 94; Ragman's 
Roll, 39 
Scottish hatred of, 323 
Solemn League and Covenant 
(1643) : 
Adherents of, 245 
Charles II.'s signing of, 209, 

212-3 
Difficulties created by, 217, 

227, 297-8 
Nature of, 195 
Union, see that heading. 

Errol, Earl of (1488), 76 

Errol, 8th Earl of, 151, 162, 164 

Errol, Earl of (1681), 237 

Errol, Sir Gilbert Hay of, 44 

Errol family, 161 



Erskine, Rev. Ebenezer, 296-7 
Erskine, Margaret (Lady Douglas 

of Loch Leven), 93 
Erskine, Lord Robert, 63 
Essex, Earl of (1601), 172 

Farquharsons, 199 
Ferniehirst, Ker of, 146 
Ferrerius cited, 73 
Ferrers, 50 
Fife, Synod of, 159 
FitzAlans, 21, 53 
Fleming, Lord (1543), 97 
Fleming, Lord (1566), 142, 146 
Fleming, Dr. Hay, cited, 149 n., 

273 n. 
Flemings, 71 

Fletcher, , 226 

Flodden, 81-2 

Fonab, Campbell of, 262 

Forbes, Lord (1488), 76 

Forbin, Adm., 274 

Ford Castle, 81 

Forfar, Earl of, 280 

Forman, Bp. of Moray, 85 

Forster, , 278 

Fothadh, Bp., 17 
Fotheringay, 160 
France : 

Annexation fears entertained 
by Scotland, 154 

" Auld Alliance " of Scotland 
with, 32, 51, 60; treaty of 
1491, 80; in early 16th cen- 
tury, 84-6 ; Jacobite treaty 
with (1745), 306 

Edward III.'s claims to, 51 

Forces from — at St. Andrews, 
107; at Leith, 121 

Garrisons in Scotland, 110 

Huguenot disturbances in, 122 ; 
Bartholomew Massacre 
(1572), 148 

Ramillies, 271 

Revolution of (1789), 323 

Spanish Succession War 
(1739), 299 
Francis, Dauphin, 113 
Francis II., King of France, 107, 

121, 127 
Franciscans, 34, 101 
Fraser, Bp. of St. Andrews, 

37 
Frazer, Simon, see Lovat. 
Frazers, 301, 312-3, 315 
Frew fords of Forth, 303 
Froissart cited, 56-7 

Galloway : 

Enclosure riots in, 285 
Gaelic names in, 4, 8 
Rebellion of (1174), 33 



334 



INDEX 



Galloway — continued 

Roman Church in (397), 6 
Subjugation of, hy Alexander 
II., 34 
Galloway, 1st Earl of, 191 
Gardiner, Col., 303-4, 305 
Gardiner, Dr., quoted, 188, 204 
Gask, Oliphants of, 303, 313 
Geddes, Jenny, 183 
George I., King, accession of, 
275 ; disgraces Mar, 276 ; re- 
lations with Argyll, 284 ; death 
of, 288 ; mentioned, 296 
George II., King, 284, 285, 291 
Gilnockie, Johnnie Armstrong of, 

88 
Glamis, 4th Lord, 76 
Glasgow : 

Disaffection of, to Prince 

Charles, 311 
General Assembly at (1581), 

154; (1638), 187 
Malt riot in, 286-7 
Roman Christianity near, 6 
Glasgow, See of, 18, 20 
Glasgow University, 69 
Glenbucket, Gordon of, 280 
Glencairn, Earl of (1543), 97, 

100-2 
Glencairn, Earl of (1556-66), 

112. 113, 137, 141 
Glencairn, Earl of (1652), 215, 

216, 220, 221, 224 
Glencoe, Maclan Macdonald of, 
255-6 

Glencoe, (1725), 288 

Glencoe, (1745), 302 

Glengarry, Macdonald of (1689), 

249, 255, 256 
Glengarry, Macdonald of (1715), 

278, 280 
Glengarry, Old (1745), 288, 301 
Glengarry, Young (1745), 301 
Glengarry, Macdonalds of, 319 
Glenlyon, Campbell of, 256 
Glenmoriston, Grants of, 319 
Glens, James Stewart of the, 321 
Glenure, Campbell of, 321 
Godscroft, Hume of, cited, 66 n. 
Gordon, Lord, 199 
Gordon, Lord Lewis (1745), 310, 

311-2 
Gordon, 1st Duke of, 243, 248 
Gordon, 2d Duke of (Huntly), 

280 
Gordon, Catherine, 78 
Gospatric, 15, 21 
Gowrie, Earl of (4th Lord Ruth- 
ven), in Murray's Council, 
141 ; raid of Ruthven, 156 ; 
conspiracy and execution, 157 
Gowrie, 3d Earl of, 163, 168-72 



Gowrie, Lady, 163 

Graden, Ker of, 305, 317 

Graham, Patrick, Bp. of St. An- 
drews, 72 

Graham, Sir Robert, 61, 62, 64 

Grange, Kirkcaldy of, 104, 118, 
120, 133, 145-7 

Grange, Lord, 269 

Gray, Master of, 158, 160 

Green, Capt., 294 

Greenshields, Rev. Mr., 274 

Grey, Lord (1544), 97 

Greys, 101 

Gruach, 13 

Guise, Cardinal, 122 

Guise, Due de, 122 

Guise, Mary of, see Mary. 

Guises, 153, 155, 157 

Guthrie, Rev. James, 212, 219-22 

Hailes, Hepburn of, 71 
Hakon, King of Norway, 35 

Haltoun (Charles Maitland), 230, 
244 

Hamilton, House of, 72, 87, 110 

Hamilton, Duke of, 166, 171-2 

Hamilton, 1st Duke of, mission 
of, with the Proclamations, 
186-7 ; retires from court, 193 ; 
imprisoned, 196 ; decapitated, 
206; mentioned, 188, 205, 208 

Hamilton, 2d Duke of (Earl of 
Lanark), joins Covenanters, 
196 ; the Engagement, 205 ; 
death of, 213 ; mentioned, 193, 
205-8 

Hamilton, 3d Duke of, 229, 231, 
243, 244, 247-8 

Hamilton, 4th Duke of (Earl of 
Arran), 266, 270, 272-3, 274 

Hamilton, 6th Duke of, 312 

Hamilton, Abp., Church under, 
111 ; imprisoned, 132 ; hanged, 
135 ; estimate of, 106 ; men- 
tioned, 99, 134, 141 

Hamilton, Lt.-Col., 256-7 

Hamilton, 1st Lord, 91 

Hamilton, Lord Claude, 151 

Hamilton, Patrick, Abbot of 
Feme, 87, 91 

Hamilton, Robert (Preacher), 
232, 233, 234 

Hamilton, Thomas, Earl of Had- 
dington, 173 

Harley, see Oxford. 

Hawley, Gen., 311-3 

Hawthornden, Drummond of, 182 

Hay, Capt., 315 

Hay, John, see Inverness. 

Hebrides, 32 

Hempsfleld, Charteris of, 201 

Henderson, , 171 



INDEX 



335 



Henri II., King of France, 107, 
120 

Henrietta Maria, Queen, 179 

Henry I., King of England, 1-9 

Henry II., King of England, 32 

Henry III., King of England, 34 

Henry IV., King of England, 57 

Henry V., King of England, 59 

Henry VI., King of England, 60, 
68, 70 

Henry VII., King of England, 75, 
76, 77, 80, 81 

Henry VIII., King of England, 
relations of, with James IV., 
80; with James V., 88, 94; 
Scottish intrigues of, 86, 92, 
101-2, 106; harries the Border, 
94 ; thwarted by Beaton, 97, 
104, 126 ; marriage scheme for 
Mary Stuart, 99-100; death of, 
107 ; perfidiousness of, 84-5, 
89, 96 

Henry, Prince, Earl of Nor- 
thumberland, 22-4 

Henry, Prince (1745), 307 

Henryson, , 76, 83 

Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews, 
83, 85 

Herkless and Hannay cited, 73 n. 

Hermitage Castle, 51, 77 

Herries, Lord, 142-4 

Hertford, see Somerset. 

Highland host of Lauderdale, 230 

Highlanders of the Isles, 79 

Highlands : 

Clan feuds in (16th cent.), 178 
Emigrations and evictions 

from, 321-2 
Lovat's recommendations as 
to, 287 

Hill, Col., 254, 256, 258 

Hog, Rev. Mr., 295 

Hogg, , 324 

Holland : 

Argyll in, 238 
Preachers, exiled, in, 229 
Scots Brigade in, 248 
Scottish intrigues with (1666), 

225 
Treaty of Tournay as affecting, 
306 

Holyrood, see under Edinburgh. 

Home, , 75-6 

Home, 3d Lord, 81, 86 

Home, 3d Earl of, 191 

Home, Rev. John, 304, 323 

Homes, 200 

Hooke, Col., 273-4 

Howard, Adm., 80, 82 

Hucheoun of the Awle Ryal, 55 

Hume, David, 294 ; quoted, 147 

Hume, Sir Geo., see Dunbar. 



Hume, Sir Patrick, 240 

Hume Brown, Prof., quoted, 123 

Humes, 75 

Huntly, 2d Earl of, 73, 74, 76, 
79 

Huntly, 3d Earl of, 81, 85 

Huntly, 4th Earl of, proclaimed 
Regent, 98 ; joins the Congre- 
gation, 122 ; treachery of, 122, 
128; death of, 131 

Huntly, 5th Earl of, at murder 
of Riccio, 137 ; joins Mary, 
137 ; band against Darnley, 
138; murder band, 139, 152; 
of Mary's party, 141, 144 ; de- 
tached by Murray, 145 ; flies 
to the Continent, 165 

Huntly, 1st Marquess of, 162, 
163, 164, 175 

Huntly, 2d Marquess of, 188, 
196, 202 

Huntly, 2d Duke of Gordon, see 
Gordon. 

Huntly family, 79, 161 

Hurry, Col., 199 

Inchcolme, 108 

India, 323 

Inverlochy, 249 

Inverness, 6, 8 

Inverness, Earl of (John Hay), 

289 
Inverness Castle, 279, 315 
Inversnaid fort, 302 
Iona, 6, 10, 17 
Ireland : 

Bruce's attempt on, 46 

Epics of, 2 and n. 

James VII. in, 249-50 

Massacre and rising (1641), 
193-4 

Scots from, 4, 6, 8 

Ulster plantation, 176, 178 
Irish prisoners, butchery of, 193, 

201, 202, 203, 204, 205 
Islay, Earl of, see Argyll, 3d 

Duke. 
Islay, Angus Og of, 44 
Isles : 

Cession of Western Isles by 
Norway, 35 

James IV.'s reduction of, 79 
Isles, Alastair of the, 62 
Isles, Donald of the, 59 
Isles, John of the (Earl of 

Ross, 1337), 51 
Isles, John, Lord of the (1461), 
, 70 

Jacobites : 

Hamilton's desertion of, 273 ; 
his death as affecting, 275 



336 



INDEX 



Jacobites — continued 

Intrigues of (1689-1763), 283 
Islay's negotiations with, 282 
Lockhart's leadership of, 270 
Ormonde's desertion of, 277 
Punitive measures against, 319 
Queensberry's dealings with, 

267 
Rising of 1715, 276-9 
Rising of 1745, 300 ff . ; Pres- 

tonpans, 305-6 
Rival leaders of, 299 

Jaffray cited, 198 n. 

James I., King, 58, 61 

James II., King, 65-9 

James III., King, 70-6 

James IV., King, rebellion of, 
75-6 ; vigorous policy, 77-9 ; 
marriage, 80 ; relations with 
Henry VIII., 80-1 ; Plodden, 
81-2 ; estimate of, 77 ; men- 
tioned, 75, 90 

James V., King, minority of, 
84-5, 87 ; relations with Henry 
VIII., 88, 94 ; difficulties of, 
89, 92-3 ; marriages, 93 ; Sol- 
way Moss, 94-5 ; mentioned, 90, 
98 

James VI., King, birth of, 138; 
baptism, 138 ; coronation, 140 ; 
plot to seize, 153 ; signs 
" Negative Confession," 153,, 
156 ; raid of Ruthven, 156 ; in- 
trigues of, 157 ; plot to poison, 
156 n. ; escape and amnesty, 
156; The Black Acts (1584), 
158 ; captured at Stirling, 159 ; 
attitude towards Mary's trial, 
159 ; yearly allowance from 
Elizabeth, 159-60 ; annexes an- 
cient church property, 161-2, 
166; quells Catholic earls, 164, 
165 ; marriage, 163 ; abrogates 
The Black Acts (1592), 164; 
dealings with the preachers 
(1596), 166, 167; " Basilicon 
Doron," 168 ; becomes King of 
England, 173 ; illegal dealings 
with the Kirk, 174 ; establishes 
Courts of High Commission, 
175 ; The Articles of Perth, 
177 ; death of, 177 ; estimate 
of, 177-8 ; Protestantism of, 
154; attitude to the Kirk, 
183 ; plots to seize, 153, 156, 
161, 165; mentioned, 124, 133, 
179 

James VII., King, secures right 
of succession, 236 ; Rye House 
plot, 238-9 ; efforts for tol- 
eration, 241-2 ; flees to Prance, 
243 ; deposed, 244 ; in Ireland, 



249-50 ; intrigues for restora- 
tion of, 247, 252; death of, 
263; mentioned, 235 

James VIII., King (Chev. de St. 
George), birth of, 242; ac- 
knowledged by Louis XIV., 
263 ; supported by him, 274 ; 
rising of 1715, 276 ; escapes 
assassination, 278 and n? ; 
lands in Scotland, 280; re- 
turns to France, 281 ; wander- 
ings and marriage of, 283 ; do- 
mestic and political difficulties, 
288, 289 ; proclaimed at Edin- 
burgh (1745), 304; estimate 
of, 281, 289; otherwise men- 
tioned, 243, 268, 272 

Jane Beaufort (wife of James 
I.), 60, 61, 64, 66 

Jeanne d'Arc, 60, 63, 192 

Jedburgh, 86 

Jedburgh Abbey, 27, 103 and n. 

Jedburgh abbots, 90 

Jeffrey, , 324 

Jerviswoode, Baillie of, 238-9 

Joanna (wife of Alexander II.), 
34 

John, King of England, 33 

John Balliol, King, 21, 23, 37-9 

John of Brittany, 43 

Johnson, Dr., 322 

Johnstones, 165 

Judicature : 

College of Justice (1540), 94 
Court of Session instituted, 64 
Ecclesiastical suits, 124 
English Commission of Justice 

(1652), 215 
Overawing of justice, 112 
Torture permitted, 226, 239, 

245, 253-4 
Union as affecting, 271 

Keir, Stirling of (1640), 190 
Keith, the Marischal, 46 
Keith, Marshal, 281, 282, 293 
Kelly, Parson, 300 
Kelso Abbey, 27, 103 and n. 
Kenmure, Gordon of, 215 
Kenmure, Vise, 278, 279 
Kennedy, Bp. of St. Andrews, 66, 

69-71 
Kennedy, Sir Hugh, 60 
Kenneth MacAlpine, 10 
Keppoch, Macdonald of (1690), 

248-9 
Keppoch, Macdonald of (1745), 

301, 314, 318 
Ker, Gibby, 212, 222 
,Ker, Sir Robert, 80 
Kerrera I., 34 
Kers, 200 



INDEX 



337 



Kersland, Ker of, 273 
Kildrummie Castle, 51 
Kilmarnock,. 4th Earl of, 319 
Kilmarnock, Lady, 311 
Kilmarnock, Boyd of, 61 
Kilmarnock, Sir Thos. Boyd of, 65 
Kilpont, Lord, 198 n., 202 
Kincardine, Earl of (1667), 227 
Kinloch, Balfour of, see Burley. 
Kinloss, Abbot of, 173 
Kinmont, Willie, 165 
Kirk : 

Articles of Perth, 177, 179, 181 
Auchterarder Creed, 295, 298 
Black Acts (1584), 158; abro- 
gated, 164 
Book of Discipline and Book 
of Common Order in Public 
Worship, 124-5, 131, 132 
Cameronians, 243-5, 254, 272 
Charles I.'s Book of Canons, 

182-4 
Charles II.'s attitude towards, 

221 
Confession of Faith (1560), 

123-5 
Constant Moderators insti- 
tuted, 175 
Conventiclers, 192 
Covenant, the (1638) : 

Abandonment of, 242, 253 
Adherents of, 245 
Charles I.'s refusal of, 203 
Charles II.'s signing of, 209, 

212-3 
Difficulties created by, 217, 

227, 297, 298 
Latter days of, 227, 241 
Montrose's refusal of, 208 
Nature of, 185-7 
Curates, 223-4, 227, 229 
Established by Parliament, 140 
Excommunication as practised 
by, 125; restricted (1635), 
182; disallowed (1690), 127 
Free Church secession (1843), 

326 
General Assembly, 125 
Indulgences, 228-9, 246 
Intolerance of, and persecu- 
tions by, 125-7, 148-9, 175, 
179 
Lay patronage, 274, 298, 299, 

325 
Marrow controversy, 295-8 
Moderates and High-Flyers, 325 
" Negative Confession" 

against Rome, 153, 156 
Power of, 164 
Preachers : 

Charles I.'s dealings with, 
181 



Kirk — continued 

Claims of, 154-5, 158, 166, 

321 
Covenant as regarded by, 

208 
Hangings of, 149 
Holland, in, 228, 229 
Indulged, 228-9, 246 
Interference of, with the 
army, 208-12 
. James VI.'s dealings with, 
166, 167, 174-5 
James VII. thanked by, 242 
Power of, 125-6 
Recalcitrant (1662), 223 
Sedition of, 154, 158, 166 
Otherwise mentioned, 241-5 
Prelacy introduced (1662), 

223 
Presbyteries established, 154-5 
Problem of government pro- 
vided by, 222 
Remnant, 234-6, 238, 254 
Remonstrants (Protesters) and 
Resolutioners, 212, 215, 217, 
218-9 
Renwick's " Apologetical Dec- 
laration," 239 
Secession — first, 287; (1843), 

325 
Strife of, with the State, 148, 
> 154-5, 222 

Superintendents, 123 

Synod of Fife, 159 

Teinds, 181 

Tulchan bishops, 148 

United Free Church (1902), 

326 
United Presbyterians, 326 
" Usages," the, 288 
Westminster Confession, 253 
William's Act regarding, 253 
Kirkcaldys, 101 

Kirkton, Rev. , 226 

Kirkwall, 35 

Knox, John, at St. Andrews, 
107 ; in the galleys, 108 ; 
movements of, 1549-53, 109, 
111 ; at Geneva, 111 ; activi- 
ties in Scotland, 111-2 ; sum- 
moned to trial, 112; at Dieppe, 
112; incites to riot, 115, 118; 
at Edinburgh, 123 ; Book of 
Discipline by, 124-5 ; marriage, 
129 ; relations with Queen 
Mary, 129, 131 ; opposes 
Mary's meeting with Eliza- 
beth, 130 ; after Holyrood riot, 
133 ; retirement to St. An- 
drews and death, 146 ; esti- 
mate of, 107 n., 147-8; esti- 
mate of History of, 117 n., 



338 



INDEX 



147 ; intolerance of, 111, 115, 
147; cited, 95 and n., 115 and 
n., 120, 129, 130; quoted, 
325 ; otherwise mentioned, 103 
n. y 138, 210, 246, 326 
Kyle, in Ayrshire, 78, 138 

Lady well, Stewart of, 192 

Lambert, Gen., 202, 205, 210, 
213, 214 

Lamberton, Bp. of St. Andrews, 
41, 43, 44 

Lanark, Earl of, see Hamilton, 2d 
Duke. 

Langdale, 206 

Langholm, 107 

Lauchleson, Margaret, 240 

Laud, Abp., 176, 179, 181, 191 

Lauder Bridge, 74 

Lauderdale, Duke of, makes the 
Engagement, 205 ; relations 
with Charles II., 220; in fa- 
vour and power, 224 ; policy 
of, 227 ; opposition to, 229-31 ; 
at Mitchell's trial, 231 ; men- 
tioned, 208, 215, 235, 236 

Learmonths, 101 

Lee, Sir Simon Lockhart of the, 
47 

Leicester, Earl of (Robert Dud- 
ley), 127, 131, 133-4 

Leighton, Abp. of Glasgow, 181, 
205, 228, 230 

Leith, 120, 121, 122 

Lennox, Earl of (1306), 44 

Lennox, Earl of (1425), 61, 
62 

Lennox, Earl of (1482), 74, 
77 

Lennox, Earl of (1513), 81 

Lennox, Earl of (1526), 87 

Lennox, Earl of (1543), against 
Arran, 99, 100 ; marriage in 
England, 101 ; sells himself to 
Henry, 102 ; alliance with 
Donald Dubh, 103; return of, 
133 ; devastates Hamilton 
country, 146 ; made Regent, 
146; shot, 146; mentioned, 
102, 132, 138 

Lennox, Duke of (Esmg Stuart 
d'Aubigny), King's favourite, 
151 ; ally of Capt. James Stew- 
art, 152 ; Elizabeth's orders 
against, 152-3 ; signs " Negative 
Confession," 153 ; favours 
episcopacy, 155 ; escapes after 
Raid of Ruthven, 156; death 
of, 156 

Lennox, Duke of (son of Esme), 
157 

Lennox, Lady, 86, 101 



Lesley, Bp. of Ross, 128, 143 ; 
cited, 73 

Leslie, Alexander, see Leven. 

Leslie, David, at Marston Moor, 
197 ; in force with Argyll, 200 ; 
Philiphaugh, 201 ; massacres 
Irish, 204-5 ; Dunbar defeat, 
210-11 ; occupies Stirling, 213 ; 
captured at Worcester, 213 ; 
mentioned, 199 

Leslie, Norman, Master of Rothes, 
102, 104 

Leslies, 101 

Lethington, William Maitland of, 
forsakes Mary of Guise, 118 ; 
endeavours to reconcile Mary 
and Elizabeth, 129, 130; mis- 
sion to England, 121 ; recon- 
ciled to Mary, 138 ; band 
against Darnley, 138 ; in mur- 
der band, 139, 141-4, 147, 152 ; 
in Murray's Council, 141 ; pro- 
duces casket letters, 143 ; im- 
prisoned and released, 145 ; in 
Edinburgh Castle, 146; death 
of, 147 ; estimate of, 121 ; nick- 
names of, 121 ; otherwise 
mentioned, 11, 112, 129, 133, 
136, 210 

Leven, Earl of (Alexander Les- 
lie), 188, 196, 197 

Leven, Earl of (1706), 273 

Liddesdale, William Douglas, 
Knight of, 50-2 

Ligonier, 285 

Lilburne, John, 215-6, 222 

Lindores, Abbey of, 101 

Lindores, Laurence of, 58 

Lindsay, Lord, of the Byres, 75 

Lindsay, Mr., 291 

Liria, Due de, 289 

Livingstone, Lord (1679), 233 

Livingstone, Sir Thos., 253, 
256 

Loch Leven, Douglas of, 93 

Loch Leven Castle, 140, 145 

Lochiel, Cameron of (1689), 249, 
255 

Lochiel, Cameron of (1725), 288, 
304 

Lochiel, Cameron of (1745), 317 

Lochiel, Camerons of, 319 

Lochgarry, Macdonnell of, 314, 
319; quoted, 313-4 

Locke, John, 259 

Lockhart, , 324 

Lockhart, Sir George, 248 

Lockhart of Carnwath, see Carn- 
wath. 

Logie, Margaret, 52 

Lollards, 58-9, 78 

Lollius Urbicus, 3 



INDEX 



339 



Lords of the Articles, 54, 181, 
189, 224, 248, 253 

Lome, Black Knight of (Sir 
James Stewart), 65 

Lome, Lord, see Argyll, 5th Earl. 

Lothian : 

Peudalisation of, 18 
Scottish acquisition of, 12 

Lothian, Earl of, 224 

Loudoun, Earl of (1745), 311, 
315 

Loudoun, Lord, 205 

Louis XL, King of France, 63, 
70, 71 

Louis XIV., King of France, 263, 
272 274 277 

Louis' XV., 'King of France, 300, 
306 

Lovat, 12th Lord (Simon Fra- 
zer), intrigue of, with Queens- 
berry, 268 ; takes Inverness 
Castle, 279 ; recommendations 
of, as to the Highlands, 287 ; 
in disfavour, 289-90 ; double 
dealing in the '45, 301 ; exe- 
cuted, 319; estimate of, 267-8 

Lovat, Master of (1745), 312, 
314 

Lude, Lady, 302 

Lulach, 13, 14 

Lyndsay, Sir David, 91, 94 

MacAlpine family, 10 

Macaulay, Lord, cited, 255 

Macbeth, 13 

Macdonald, Dr., cited 5 n. 

Macdonald, Alastair (Colkitto), 
196, 197-202 

Macdonald, Alexander, 255-6 

Macdonald, Sir John, 300 

Macdonalds (Lords of the Isles), 
22, 32, 79, 88; fall of, 178 

Macdonalds, Keppoch's : 
Battle place of, 305, 311-2 
Culloden, at, 316-8 
Kilsyth, at, 200 

Macdonalds of Ireland, 196-7 

Macdonnell, iEneas, 301, 313 

Macdowal of Argyll, 44 

Macgregor, James Mor, 302, 322 

Macgregor, Rob Roy, 302 

Macgregors, 278, 305 

MacHeths (Mackays), 22 and n. 

Mackail, Mr., 226 

Mackay, Gen., 244, 248, 252 

Mackays, 59, 311 

Mackenzie, Sir George, defends 
Argyll, 221 ; opposes witch- 
burnings, 224, 236, 245; 
against Lauderdale, 229 ; 
changes sides, 231 ; at Mitch- 
ell's trial, 231-2; against tol- 



eration, 235, 242 ; supersedes 

Dairy mple, 242; quoted, 225; 

cited, 229 
Mackenzie, Roderick, 269 
Mackenzies, 209, 281, 288 
Mackintosh, Lady, 301-15 
Maclean, Col., 277 
Macleans, 88, 103, 165, 199-200, 

213, 234, 237, 249, 254, 278, 

280, 301, 317, 319 
M'Lennan, 225 
Macleod (1744-5), 300, 301, 306, 

311, 315 
Macleod, Lord, 311 
Macleods, 103, 315, 319 
Macneils, 104 
Macpherson, Cluny, 301, 308, 

310, 314, 319 
Macphersons, 312, 315, 319 
MaeWard (Preacher), 228 
MacWilliams, 33 
Madeleine (wife of James V.), 

93 
Magus Moor, 232 
Maid of Norway, 36-7 
Maitland, Sir John, 161, 163, 

165 
Maitland of Lethington, see Leth- 

ington. 
Malcolm Canmore, 13-5 
Malcolm MacHeth, 22, 32 
Malcolm the Maiden, King, 24, 

32 
Malcolm I., King, 11 
Malcolm II., King, 12, 13 
Malcolm III., King, 11 
Man, Isle of, 32, 35 
Manchester men with Prince 

Charles, 309-10 
Mar, Earl of (Regent, 1332), 49 
Mar, Earl of (Alexander Stew- 
art), 59, 62 
Mar, Earl of (brother of James 

III.), 70, 73 
Mar, 6th Earl of, 141, 146, 

147 
Mar, 7th Earl of, 150, 151, 157, 

158, 173 
Mar, Earl of, 191 
Mar, 11th Earl of, urges the 

Union, 266; rising of 1715, 

276-80 ; desperate position of, 

280 ; sails to France, 281 ; de- 
nounced, 289 
Mar, Lady, 152 
March, Earl of (1423), 63 
Margaret (daughter of James I.), 

63 
Margaret, Queen of Norway, 35 
Margaret, St., 15-7 
Margaret of Norway (wife of 

James III.), 72 



340 



INDEX 



Margaret Tudor (wife of James 

IV.), 80, 83-7 
Marie de Coney (wife of Alex- 
ander II.), 34 
Marischal, Earl (1560), 122 
Marischal, Earl (1640), 191 
Marischal, Earl (1715), 281, 

282, 300 
Mary, Princess (sister of James 

III.), 71-2 
Mary of Gueldres (wife of 

James II.), 66, 70 
Mary of Guise (wife of James 
V.), marriage of, 93; in An- 
gus' hands, 102 ; French ad- 
visers of, 107, 109, 110 ; rela- 
tions with Protestants, 114-5, 
119 ; Knox's hatred of, 116-7 ; 
illness of, 115 ; sheltered in 
Edinburgh Castle, 121 ; death 
of, 122 
Mary of Orange, 244 
Mary Stewart, Queen, birth of, 
95 ; marriage scheme for, 100 ; 
crowned, 101 ; taken to France, 
108-9 ; marriage with the 
Dauphin, 113 ; seal of, forged 
by the Congregation, 121-2 ; 
relations with Knox, 129, 131 ; 
negotiations for meeting with 
Elizabeth, 130-1 ; rejects Hunt- 
ly's scheme, 128 ; overthrows 
Huntly, 131 ; question of mar- 
riage of, 132-3 ; Chatelard 
affair, 132 ; turns to Darnley, 
134 ; summons Bothwell, 135 ; 
marries Darnley, 134-5 ; mur- 
der of Riccio, 136-7; birth of 
her son, 138 ; ill at Jedburgh, 
138; marries Bothwell, 139- 
40 ; the casket letters, 139 and 
n., 143, 144 ; Norfolk mar- 
riage project, 143-5 ; Ridolphi 
plot, 146 ; Morton's advances 
to, 150 ; plot to poison, 156 n. ; 
Gray's betrayal of, 158 ; Bab- 
ington plot, trial and execu- 
tion, 159-60; estimate of, 127- 
8 ; appearance of, 128 ; por- 
trait of, 128 w. 
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 

110, 114 
Matilda, Queen of England, 22 
Matilda (wife of David I.), 21 
Matilda (Eadgyth) (wife of Hen- 
ry I.), 19 
Maxwell, Lord (1528), 87 
Maxwell, Lord (1542), 97 
Maxwell, Lord (1595), 165 
Meata?, 4 

Menteith, Sir John, 41, 49 
Melfort, Earl of, 238, 241-4 



Melrose Abbey, 27, 34, 56, 103 
and n. 

Melville, Earl of, 247, 252, 254 

Melville, Andrew, 149, 154, 158, 
165, 166, 174, 218 

Melville, James, 104 

Melville, Sir James, 133 

Methuen, Paul (Preacher), 114 

Methven, Lord (Henry Stewart), 
87 

Middleton, Major, 212, 213, 215, 
216, 221, 224 

Milne, Walter, 113 

Mitchell (Preacher), 228, 231-2 

Mohun, Lord, 274 

Moidart, Seven Men of, 300 

Monk, Gen., saves Dundee, 213 ; 
success at Alyth, 213, 221 ; ad- 
ministration of, 214 ; relations 
with Argyll, 215, 221-2; chases 
Middleton, 216 ; mentioned, 
210, 218 

Monmouth, Duke of, 233, 240 

Monreith, Maxwell of, 225 

Montereuil cited, 203 

Montgomery, Abp. of Glasgow, 
155 

Montrose, 3d Earl of, 162 

Montrose, 1st Marquess of, pro- 
tests against the Liturgy, 184 ; 
takes Huntly, 188 ; against 
Argyll, 190 ; enters Newcastle, 
191 ; imprisoned by Argyll, 192 ; 
released, 193 ; scheme to at- 
tack Covenanters, 196 ; Lieu- 
tenant-General, 196 ; victories 
with Colkitto, 198; at Alford, 
199; Kilsyth, 200; desertions, 
200, 202; Philiphaugh, 201; 
under murder price, 202 ; leaves 
the country, 204 ; in Scotland 
for Charles II., 208; death of, 
209, 222; mentioned, 195, 196, 
261 

Morar, Macdonald of, 308 

Moray, Earl of (brother of 8th 
Earl of Douglas), 67 

Moray, Earl of, 87 

Moray, Earl of (Regent), see 
Murray. 

Morel quoted, 115 

Morgan, Col., 216 

Morton, 4th Earl of, in Prot- 
estant " band," 113 ; disaffect- 
ed, 136 ; murder of Riccio, 
137 ; flees, 138 ; in Murray's 
Council, 141 ; the casket let- 
ters, 143 ; made Regent, 147 ; 
ecclesiastical policy, 148-9 ; 
makes advances to Mary, 150 ; 
resigns Regency, 151 ; fall of. 
151 ; denounced for Darnley 



INDEX 



341 



murder, 152, 153 ; deserted by 
Elizabeth, 153; executed, 153; 
estimate of, 153 ; mentioned, 
139, 146 

Morton, Earl of (6th Lord Max- 
well), 162 

Morton family, 161 

Moy, Rout of, 315 

Moyle, Gen., 292 

Munroes (1745), 311 

Murray, House of, 13, 17, 22 

Murray, Earl of (Thomas Ran- 
dolph), 45, 46 

Murray (Moray), 1st Earl of 
(Lord James Stewart), parent- 
age of, 93 ; Regent, 98 ; joins 
the Protestants, 116 ; brings 
Mary back to Scotland, 128; 
Earl of Mar — later of Murray, 
129, 131 ; enmity with Knox, 
132 ; outlawed, 135 ; " band " 
against Riccio, 137; returns 
from England, 137; "band" 
against Darnley, 138 ; accepts 
the Regency, 140 ; produces 
casket letters, 143 ; supported 
by Elizabeth, 144; shot, 145; 
estimate of, 145 ; otherwise 
mentioned, 93, 113, 119, 122, 
129, 135, 136 

Murray, 2d Earl of, 163 

Murray, Andrew, 50 

Murray, Sir Andrew, 40 

Murray, Lord George, crushed at 
Glenshiel, 283; relations with 
Jacobites, 303-4, 309; over- 
rules Prince Charles, 308 ; re- 
signs, 308 ; success at Clifton, 
310; Falkirk fight, 312; in- 
sists on retreat, 314 ; Cullo- 
den, 315-8 ; escapes after Cul- 
loden, 320 ; cited on Preston- 
pans, 306 

Murray, James, 289 

Murray, Sir Robert, 227 

Murray, Will, 229 

Murray of Broughton, see 
Broughton. 

Musselburgh, 5 

Napier, Lord, 190, 202 
Neilson, Dr., cited, 42 n. 
Nevoy (Preacher), 205 
Newcastle, Duke of, 299 
Newstead, 4 
Nithsdale, Earl of, 279 
Nixons, 28 

Norfolk, 3d Duke of, 94 
Norfolk, 4th Duke of, 143-6 
Norham-on-Tweed, 38 
Norham Castle, 81 
Normans in Scotland, 21 



Northmen, Western Isles won 
from, 35 

Northumberland : 

David I.'s aims as to, 22, 24 
English acquisition of, 32 
Scottish ravaging of (1297), 
40 

Northumberland, 7th Earl of, 145 

Nova Scotia, 178 

Ochiltree, Lord (1561), 129, 137 

Octavians, the, 165 

Ogilvie, Father, 176 

Ogilvy, Lord (1640), 190, 202, 
212 

Ogilvy, Lord (1745), 303, 306 

Ogilvy, Mariotte, 106 

Oliphant, Robert, 169 n. 

Orkney, 178 

Ormond, Earl of (1448), 67 

Ormonde, 2d Duke of (1715), 277 

Ormsby, Chief-Justice of Eng- 
land, 39 

Oswald, King, 9 

Oswiu, King, 9 

Oxford, Earl of (Robert Har- 
ley), 272, 275, 276 

Paisley Abbey, 121 

Parkhead, Douglas of, 159 

Paterson, Sir Hugh, 311 

Paterson, William, 259-60, 261 

Patrick, Earl, 178 

Paulet, Amyas, 160 

Paullinus, 9 

Payne, Nevile, 253, 263 

Percy (1297), 40 

Percy (1403), 57 

Percy (1448), 67 

Percy, Hotspur, 57 

Perth : 

Bruce's capture of (1313), 45 

Burning of, 56 

Convention at (1569), 144-5 

Mar's headquarters at (1715), 
277 

Protestant riot in (1559), 115, 
116, 117 
Perth, Earl of (1641), 191 
Perth, 1st Duke of (4th Earl), 

231, 238, 241-2, 243 
Perth, 3d Duke of, 303, 309, 320 

Phelipps, , 159 

Philip IV., King of Spain, 112, 

164 
Philip of Burgundy, 70 
Pictland, 6-8 
Picts : 

Christianising of, 6 

First mention of, 4 

Fusion of, with Scots, 10 
Pitsligo, Lord, 306 



342 



INDEX 



Polwarth, Hume of, 247, 252 
Porteous, John, 290-3 

Poyntz, , 199 

Pretender, the, see James VIII. 
Puritans, 179 

Queensberry, Duke of, 238, 241, 
266-8, 272 

Ramsay, Sir Alexander, 51 

Ramsay, Sir James, cited, 62 n. 

Ramsay, John, Earl of Bothwell, 
78, 79 

Ramsay, John (James VI.'s 
page), 168, 170 

Randolph (diplomatist), 127, 133, 
134, 135, 137, 146, 153 

Randolph, John, Earl of Mur- 
ray, 50, 51 

Rathillet, Hackstoun of, 232, 235 

Renwick, Mr. James, 238, 241 

Resby, , 58 

Restalrig, Logan of, 160 

Riccio, David, 135-7 

Richard I., King of England, 33 

Richard II., King of England, 56 

Richard III., King of England, 
74, 75 

Richmond, Duke of, quoted, 309 

Robert, Bp. of St. Andrews, 20 

Robert Bruce, King, varied for- 
tunes of, 44-6 ; death and es- 
timate of, 47 ; perfidy of, 41, 
43 ; mentioned, 38, 40 

Robert II., King, 52, 56-7 

Robert III., King, 57 

Robertson, , 290 

Robertson, Principal, 322 

Robsart, Amy, 127 

Robsons, 28 

Roman occupation of Scotland, 
2-5 and n. 

Rome, Scottish relations with, 
17-8, 19-20 

Ross, Earl of (1451), 67 

Ross, Lord (1679), 233, 252 

Rothes, , 82 

Rothes, Duke of, 220, 224-8, 231, 
236 

Rothes, 5th Earl of, 137 

Rothes, 6th Earl of, 184 

Rothesay, Duke of (David), 57 

Rough, John, 107 

Rowallan, Elizabeth Muir of, 52 

Roxburgh, 1st Duke of, 287 

Roxburgh Abbey, 103 n. 

Roxburgh Castle, 22, 32, 68 

Rupert, Prince, 197, 199 

Russel, James, cited, 234 

Russell, Lord, 238 

Rutherglen, 233 

Ruthven, 3d Lord, 136, 137, 138 



Ruthven, 4th Lord, see Gowrie. 
Ruthven, Lord (1639), 188 
Ruthven, Master of, 168-71 

Sadleyr, Sir Ralph, 100, 121 
St. Andrews : 

Capital and See at, 10 
Convention at (1645), 202 
Martyrdoms at, 104, 113-4 
Protestant devastation of, 118-9 
See of, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20 
University of, 58, 69, 83, 119, 
182 
St. Andrews Castle, 104-6, 156 
Saint Simon cited, 278 n. 
Saltoun, Fletcher of, 270 
Saville, Lord, 190 
Scandinavians, 8 
Scone : 

Abbey sacked (1559), 119 
Capital and See at, 10 
Estates meeting at (1286), 37 
Stone of, 39 
Scotland : 

Agriculture in, 27, 264 
Christianising of, 6 
Communitas of, 26, 38, 39 
Conditions in — prehistoric, 1-2 ; 
Adamnan's time, 6-7 ; time 
of the Union, 264-5 
Divisions of, , in early times, 

7-8 
England : 

Alliance with (1586), 159 
Jealousy of, towards Scots, 

323 
Solemn League and Cove- 
nan, see under England. 
Union, see that heading. 
Feudalisation of, 24-6 
Fleet of (15th cent.), 77 
France : 

Annexation by, feared, 154 
"Auld Alliance" with, 32, 
51, 60; treaty of 1491, 
80; in early 16th cent, 
84-6 
Suspicions of, 110 
Literary renaissance of, 322 
Name, origin of, 4, 8 
Nobles, characteristics of, 43 ; 

venality, 77, 78 
Parliament, constitution and 
character of, 53-4. See also 
Lords of the Articles. 
Race mixture in, 8 
Roman frontiers in, 2-4 
Sufferings of, under the Res- 
toration, 244-5 
Tudor policy regarding, 78, 165 
Universities of, 326 (see also 
their names). 



INDEX 



343 



Scothouse, Macdonnell of, 317 

Scots : 

Dalriadic, 4, 7, 8 
Fusion of, with Picts, 10 
Succession system of, 12-3 

Scott, , 324-5 

Scott, Sir Walter, 323, 325 ; 
quoted, 194 

Scottish East India Co., 258 ff. 

Scotts, 28 

Scrope, Lord, 166 

Seaforth, Earl of (1645), 197 

Seaforth, Earl of (1715-25), 288 

Seaforth, Earl of (1745), 311 

Seton, see Dunfermline. 

Sempill, Lord, 299, 300 

Severus, 4 

Sharp, James, Abp. of St. An- 
drews, captured by Monk, 213 ; 
relations with Resolutioners, 
218 ; cruelty to prisoners, 226 ; 
shot at, 228; at Mitchell's 
trial, 231-2; murder of, 232; 
estimate of, 223, 232-3; men- 
tioned, 221, 224, 226 

Shaw, Sir John, 241 

Shawfield, Campbell of, 287 

Sheridan, Sir Thomas, 289, 300, 
318 

Shetland, 178 

Sidney, Algernon, 238 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 158 

Simson, Rev. John, 294-5, 297 

Sinclair, Oliver, 95 

Skelmorley, Montgomery of, 247, 
252-3 

Sleat, Macdonald of (1689), 255 

Sleat, Sir Alexander Macdonald 
of, 300, 301, 306, 319 

Smith, Adam, 323 

Somerled Macgillebride, 22, 32 

Somerset, Duke of (Earl of Hert- 
ford), 102, 103 and n. 

Spain : 

Armada, 162 

Darien Expedition, 258-63 
Jacobite sympathies of, 281 
Scottish Earls' intrigue with 

(1589), 162 
" Spanish Blanks," 164 
War with England (1739), 299 

Spalding cited, 198 n. 

Spottiswoode, Abp. of St. An- 
drews, 173, 175, 176, 182 

Spottiswoode, Sir Robert, 201 

Stair, 1st Earl of (Sir John Dal- 
rymple), 247, 255-8, 277 

Stair, 2d Earl of, 286 

Stair, Vise. (Sir James Dalrym- 
ple), 242, 247, 256 

Steele, Sir Ricbard, 282 

Stephen, King of England, 22-3 



Steward, Lord James the, 17, 39, 

40 
Steward, Walter the, 46, 47, 50, 

52 
Stewart, Allan Breck, 321 
Stewart, Capt. James, see Arran. 
Stewart, Lord James (see Mur- 
ray, 1st Earl. 
Stewart, John Roy, 289 
Stewart, Lord Robert, 153 
Stirling Castle : 

Bruce's siege of (1314), 45 
English siege of (1304), 41 
Importance of, 225, 243 
Jacobite attempt on, 311-3 
mentioned, 146, 151 
Strachan, Col., 209, 212, 222 
Strafford, Earl of (Thos. Went- 

worth), 190, 191 
Strange, Sir Robert, quoted, 318 
Strathallan, Lord (1744-5), 303 
Strathallan, Master of, 306, 311, 
313 

Strathbogie, , 325 

Strathclyde, 7, 10, 12 
Strathearn, Earl of (Malise 

Graham), 63-4 
Strathmore, 5th Earl of, 280 
Struan, Robertsons of, 303 
Stuart dynasty, — origin of, 21, 

52-3; end of, 244 
Sullivan, Col., 300, 303, 318 
Surrey, Earl of (1497), 80, 81 
Surrey, Earl of (1523), 82 
Sussex, Earl of, 146 
Swift, Dean, 276 

Talbot, Lord, 50 

Tarbet, Mackenzie of, 237 

Thorfinn, 15 

Tobermory Bay. 162 

Townley, Mr., 309 

Traquair, Earl of, 190, 200 

Treaties : 

Abernethy, 16 

Ardtornish (1462), 71 

Birgham (1290), 37 

Edinburgh (1560), 122, 128 

Falaise, 33 

France and Scotland, between 
(1491), 80 

Holy League (1511), 80 

Irvine (1297), 40 

Isles, with (1266), 35 

Mary of Guise and insurgents, 
between, 116; (July 1559), 
120 

Northampton (1328), 47 

Tournay, 280 
Tullibardine (1488), 76 
Tullibardine, Marquess of (1745), 

300, 308-9, 320 



344 



INDEX 



Turgot cited, 15 

Turner, Sir James, 225, 227, 228 ; 

cited, 197, 204 
Tweeddale, Earl of, 224, 227, 

258, 268 ; forms squadrone 

volante, 270 
Tweeddale, 4th Marquess of, 302 

Umfraville, 49-50 

Union of England and Scotland : 
Accomplishment of, 273 
Attempts at, under the Com- 
monwealth, 214, 216 
Conditions of, 271-2 
Necessity for, 264, 269 
Repeal of, proposed, 274 
State of Scotland at time of, 
264-5 

Ure cited, 234 

Vaughans, 309 
Veitch, Mr., 237 
Voltaire cited, 323 
Vourich, Clan (1725), 288 

Wade, Gen., 287-8, 306, 307-8, 
309 

Wake, , 50 

Waleys, Wm. le, 40 n. 

Wallace, Sir Malcolm, of El- 
derslie, 39 

Wallace, William, 39-42 

Walpole, Horace, 311 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 285, 286, 
292, 293, 299 

Walsingham, Sir Francis, 159 

Waltheof, Earl of Northumber- 
land, 22 

Warbeck, Perkin, 78-9 

Wardlaw, Henry, 58 

Warenne, Earl of Surrey, 39, 40 

Waristoun, Johnston of, 187, 
207, 224; quoted, 188 

Watt, James, 323 

Welsh, John (Preacher), 232-4 



Wesleys, 325 

West, Dr., 80 

Wharton (English leader, 1542), 
94, 102 

Whitburgh, Anderson of, 305 

Whitefoord, Col., 305 

Whithern, 6 

Wigtoun, Earl of (1640), 191 

Wigtown, 240 

William I. (The Conqueror) King 
of England, 15, 16 

William II. (Rufus), King of 
England, 16, 19 

William III. (of Orange), King, 
proclaimed King, 244 ; Kirk 
policy, 253, 257 ; orders mas- 
sacre of Glencoe, 256 ; after 
Glencoe, 258 ; Scottish East In- 
dia Co., 258-9 ; unpopularity 
of, 262 ; foreign wars of, 257, 
271 ; mentioned, 239, 243, 
247 

William the Lion, King, 24, 28, 
31-3 

Willock (Preacher), 114, 122 

Wilson, , 324 

Wilson, Provost, 292 

Wilson (Smuggler), 290-1 

Wilson, Margaret, 240 

Wimund, Brother, 24 

Winzet, Ninian, 126 

Wishart, , 102 and n. 

Wishart, Bp. of Glasgow, 40 

Wishart, George, 101, 104 

Wodrow, quoted, 228, 230 

Wogan, Charles, 279 

Wolfe, Gen., 317; cited, 312, 319 

Wood, Sir Andrew, 77 

Wyntoun, 55 ; cited, 60 

York, 143 

Yorke, Col., cited, 318 

Young, Peter, 152 

Zouche, 1st Lord, 50 



THE END 



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